Comment Stream

Re: VOY S3: Future's End, Part I

Gangsta ass Tuvok, illest emcee in two quadrants.

Re: VOY S3: Coda

Check out the giant strand of saliva flying from Chakotay's mouth when he's holding her dead body, mad props to Mulgrew for staying limp in those circumstances.

Re: VOY S3: Warlord

I hadn't really been on board with the Neelix hate so far but the start of this episode, with him making baby sounds while getting his stupid rubber feet rubbed? Yeah, okay, count me in.

Re: VOY S3: Basics, Part II

Actually, there was one scene of genuine character development this episode and that's when Cullan tenderly scoops up what he still thinks is Chakotay and Seska's baby and walks off with it. I'm almost sad we'll never see him again just when he finally exhibits something beyond cartoon villainy.

Re: VOY S2: Basics, Part I

Why does the doctor even freak out about being in space?

Re: VOY S2: Resolutions

See, I knew Chakotay was making half of that indian crap up as he went along, finally he admits it. Also apparently he doesn't even have a first name. I know I'm late on that one considering we've had one person he used to sleep with and one person who fantasized about it both simply call him Chakotay but he was a commanding officer to both so it kind of slipped under the radar.
Also also pleeease don't tell us about the backrubs you used to give your mother while in the actual process of giving someone a sexy backrub.


The idea of being the only two people on a wild, alien planet for life was kind of fun to toy around with but that was pretty much all I got out of this one. Engineering remembering half the crap on the ship is wildly destructive if pressed into service as a makeshift weapon was kind of a nice change of pace from Voyager getting its butt kicked at least.

Re: VOY S2: Tuvix

Tuvix was a dick. He's got the memories and emotions of both Tuvok and Neelix yet he's cool with having Kes lose Neelix and uh that Vulcan chick with the crazy eyes and her children lose Tuvok? He has Vulcan logic but doesn't see the rights of two people with deeply rooted lives and loved ones matter more than those of some dude who just showed up a couple weeks ago?

Re: VOY S2: The Thaw

The videogame Fallout 3 recycled the basics of this setup for a segment where you become trapped in an endless idealized 50's style suburb ruled by a sadistic AI intent on making the people in stasis torment each other endlessly. It was a lot of fun and a highlight of the game for a lot of people (it's even in black and white, and you get the option to buddy up with the AI if you like by doing some tormenting of your own.).

Where was I? Oh yeah, Voyager. The whole endless carnival was suitably nightmarish but all that waffle on the concept of fear was completely extraneous. As soon as the one hostage mentions the lag between thinking something and the AI becoming aware of it you know there's a vulnerability there big enough to drive a (hover)bus through and all the stoner-level philosophy is just delaying his inevitable undoing.

Re: VOY S2: Innocence

I agree there was some good Tuvok in there but it still dragged on forever. And Tuvok did a pretty terrible job of watching those kids considering two were able to wander into that cave even though he was working like two meters from the campfire.

The shuttle inadvertently landing on a sacred moon raises the issue that it's not very polite to just put boots on the ground wherever you like in an inhabited system without asking for permission.

Re: VOY S2: Deadlock

Ah but in Vidian culture a floating corpsicle is considered a most generous gift, they might very well see it as an olive branch for blowing up their ship.

I can't believe they managed to have such horrible things happen while keeping the precious status quo, especially without resorting to 'it's all a dream LOL' copouts. Very tense episode and genuinely disturbing to see a crew get organ harvested and blown up.
Janeway being so flippant about it to Kim was weeeeird though, she was ready to sacrifice her own Voyager to save the other one earlier in the episode but now she's suddenly acting like the other one going down with all hands was no big deal?

Re: VOY S2: Investigations

Sooo all they had to do to find their mole was look at the comm logs, which were butchered so badly they immediately made Neelix suspicious? Shouldn't someone have done that BEFORE setting up a convoluted sting operation involving handing a senior officer over to the knockoff Klingons?

Re: VOY S2: Lifesigns

I agree with EP that the doctor has been way too sentient from the start, meaning a lot of the Data-ish 'what makes a man' stuff fell flat because there simply wasn't enough ambiguity there.

That said I'm more annoyed by the episodes where they try to play that angle than the ones where he exhibits blatantly self-aware behavior so this one was fine by me.

Chakotay sure goes down like a sack of potatoes down a flight of stairs if you so much as brush up against him. I guess the guy just has a lot of experience doing the dramatic exploding console/sparks shooting across the screen leap by this point in VOY's run.

Re: VOY S2: Death Wish

Phil: maybe Q plucked him out of bed and slapped him into the uniform he was most familiar with. /inconsistency apologist

I can't say I'm terribly happy to see the familiar Q return as a straight-laced, upstanding member of the Q continuum just to hash out the tired old euthanasia discussion again. You'd think the utopian earth society would be less uptight about it too. Two stars from me, one for Riker, one for Riker's facial hair.

Re: VOY S2: Dreadnought

'Your reputation preceeds you captain Janeway, we heard you guys bring death and destruction wherever you go!'
'Who told you that, first minister?'
'Why it was our good friends the unpredictable bloodthirsty tribal warriors!'

This would've been a lot better if it hadn't been Star Trek but some other show were bad things can actually happen.

Also I want B'ellana to do some Klingon stuff already, she passed up some prime opportunities to hit various vital parts of that stuck-up missile with a well placed blow of a wrench this episode.

Re: VOY S2: Alliances

Seska told both Chakotay and the Maj the child was theirs.

I don't see how Voyager keeps getting into fights with the Kazon considering it's orders of magnitude faster than even the federation's flagship, let alone some backwards yokels with broccoli hair.
I can't see the splintered Kazon sects holding down enough territory that you couldn't simply fly straight past at max warp cruise in about a week but even if their turf is somehow unimaginably huge what exactly is stopping VOY from peacing out at warp 9.7 whenever the Kazon get into sensor range?

Well okay it'd make for lousy television but the way they're handling it now makes it very hard for me to take it seriously. Why did the writers make Voyager so fast in the first place?

Re: VOY S2: Prototype

Ohoho Data is totally to blame for Torres and Janeway trusting creepy sentient robots.

I don't feel enough attention was paid to the fact that unlike your standard should-we-cure-the-virus-or-not prime directive ethical dilemma ROBOTS DON'T DIE and giving them the ability to procreate at will means they can expand their numbers exponentially until the galaxy runs out of metal ore.

Re: VOY S2: Cold Fire

All sorts of weird crap happened so I was thoroughly entertained. The screeching KFC crispy strip was unintentionally hilarious.

Ocampa dude's BIG TWIST was ruined by the same problem that's plagued every single betrayal in voyager to date including Seska's: he just looked wildly untrustworthy from the get-go. I don't know whether it's a casting thing or what but he might as well have twirled his mustache at us.

Re: VOY S2: Tattoo

"Can you hear what the hawk is saying?" Yes it's saying "CAAAWK BRING ME THE TALAXIAN SO I MAY FEAST UPON HIS EYEBALLS!"

Too much Indian Magic and Universal Village for my tastes, thank you very much.

Re: VOY S2: Persistence of Vision

Now now, lord Burly (it's very hard to even type out without laughing) isn't a virgin, he has totally gotten laid at least twice. Also he's a complete douche of a father and I wish Janeway would deck his muttonchopped ass for trying to bone the nanny instead of at least trying to console his daughter.

I guess they didn't go with the hot and steamy affair with an Italian underwear model holonovel because they didn't want to knock the ever-lucrative nerd demographic out of their comfort zone.

Speaking of nerds getting knocked out of their comfort zone: that scene where Kes is doing some science to a console only to suddenly emit a blood-curdling scream and develop gross pestilent sores all over nearly gave me a heart attack for just how quickly and unexpectedly it went from Trekbusiness as usual to things being horribly wrong. Not recommended viewing at one in the morning.

Re: VOY S2: Parturition

Hey remember back in 'the 37s' how Voyager could casually swoop down through atmospheric turmoil that'd tear a shuttlecraft apart? Well, nobody on the crew does so it's time to wreck another shuttle.

Re: VOY S2: Twisted

I'm a sucker for some sci-fi horror hijinks so I quite enjoyed the nightmarish scenario of an ever shifting labyrinth of a starship. I'm quite prepared to three-star this one on the basis of just that and Baxter's explanation of why he didn't notice the gym getting freezing cold.

The crew just giving up was kind of hard to take because as a viewer that sort of thing just slaps you out of your suspension of disbelief because you immediately know everything is going to be fine. Maybe if it'd been the final episode that sort of thing could provide some tension but now it's just a self-spoiler.

Re: VOY S2: Non Sequitur

I love how in the 24th century you are free to do whatever your heart desires but if that happens to entail playing pool in the afternoon while getting mildly sauced you are immediately pegged as a loser and your life's a catastrophic failure.

Re: VOY S2: Elogium

This episode also completely ignores the possibility that Neelix' and Kes' freaky Ocampalaxian baby will inherit at least part of the Ocampa's brief shelf-life and that it's likely Neelix will live to bury not only the woman he loves but his own child as well. Wonderful.

At least he can now describe in great detail to Lt.Paris the Ocampa mating ritual and allay his jealousy a bit. I'm fairly sure Tom wants none of that action.

Re: VOY S2: Projections

I wonder if Barclay's cousin Frank is an intentional dig at late-stage Scrappy Doo-ish A-Team addition Frankie.

I agree with the four stars whole-heartedly. Every time you finally get a handle on things another layer of the onion is peeled off and you're left even more bewildered than before. The Doctor really shines as he tries to power through it all with logic even when confronted with premises that'd convince an ordinary man his sanity had abandoned him.

Re: VOY S2: Initiations

Stupid off-brand Klingons..

I don't know I kind of liked Chakotay here, and the way I interpreted it is he left the fleet because he couldn't live with their policy of leaving the border colonies to fend for themselves rather than because he wanted to be a rowdy borderline space terrorist. His LOOK AT ME BEING ALL INDIAN stuff is usually annoying but here, taken to this extreme I found it hard not to respect him.