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Re: BSG S4: No Exit

After "Crossroads", I remember developing some theories who the last one of the Final Five could be.

Considering the irony that those who fought the cylons most fiercely turned out to be cylons themselves, it left me with the suspicion that the last one could only be Duck. (Try to imagine the horror reawakening after his suicide bombing, finding himself in the role of the enemy!)

Since it is no spoiler after this episode, I believe this is the right place to ask if anyone else had that idea.

Re: ORV S2: Identity, Part I

Great episode, good article.

Well, at least now we know why Isaac never said anything about the Kaylons' creators, a question I would have expected, if not from Mercer, then at least from the doctor. (AIs do not create themselves, and about personal matters during a rendezvous usually is not a one-way road.)

One opinion I don't quite share:
"Coexistence is impossible" is not nearly as good "Resistance is futile".
Nobody would argue that the Borg are a much more serious adversary than the Kaylons. On the other hand, the Borg have their evil-ness written all over them. No sane person would seriously consider a romantic relationship with anything resembling a fully assimilated Borg or a Cylon centurion, let alone having one of them look after your children (well, at least if you care about them). I understand your qualms about these matters in Isaac's case, but for the most part, he seems to be closer to Data, who has been the object of romantic interests several times.

The twist regarding the Kaylons is the fact that, in the beginning, they don't seem menacing at all. And as the other shoe drops, the story remains consequent by showing them as unfeeling bureaucrats rather than aggressors/conquerors. The quote gets along well with that philosophy: As a logical conclusion of their researches, the eradication of all organic life is simply a matter of necessity.

Re: ORV S2: Blood of Patriots

Greetings to all!

Saw the ep yesterday. There's something I am not sure about: How was the "daughter" dealt with? Did the scanning and/or the nitrogen removal kill her? This part of the story was done rather quickly.

Re: DS9 S4: The Sword of Kahless

Despite some credulity problems, this show is a good example for a particular strength of DS9: repeated guest starring. (Due to their way of serialization, TOS, TNG and VOY can hardly compete with this.)

I will always enjoy John Colicos in this role. Does anybody but me have this "Grandfather-tell-me-a-story"-feeling during the first scene? Although he only appears in three eps (I believe), his character is fleshed out surprisingly well, and Colicos' acting adds a lot to it. It's one of the reasons why I prefer DS9's Klingons to TNG's ones.

Re: VOY S3: Real Life

This holodeck story reminded me a bit of "Pleasantville", especially the scenes before B'Ellana changed the program. (That family was so unbearably smarmy I would hate to be one of the actors. Fun to watch, though.)

To some of the messages above: We are talking about TV characters in a fictional story. The holo-stories are just one level further away - the story *inside* of the story. What makes it so much more difficult to sympathize with them as we do with the, um, "real" Voyager world?

Re: TNG S7: All Good Things...

A small comment about Geordi/Leah:
I remember "Endgame", when The Doctor comes to the arrival anniversary with his wife. So it is/will be possible for holograms to have a flesh-and-blood spouse. Now, since we know that Geordi has created a Holo-Leah...

Re: Jammer's hiatus explained with a special announcement

Frankly said, I've been wondering about the reasons for this sudden hiatus. This was one of the rare cases when the best possibility proved to be true :-)

Best wishes from a fellow father (two small boys).

Re: TNG S7: Force of Nature

The real paradox in this episode is that the oh-so-brilliant Serova proved her theories the practical way. Using her as an allegory for present environmental problems, consider her an anti-nuclear activist causing a radioactive meltdown (in her vicinity) to prove lacking reactor safety. Yeah, brilliant indeed!

(I admit, I essentially quoted Phil Farrand here. But come to think about it, he does have a point.)

Re: TNG S7: Dark Page

I'd say they tried to save Majel Barrett's grace by giving Lwaxana a better backstory. And to me, it worked, both because it had a credible climax I didn't see coming, and because some of her earlier exaggerations made more sense to me after this (like the obsession to get Deanna married to whomever - she already lost two out of three family members, and if Deanna dies in this risky starfleet business without offspring...)

Granted, I haven't seen this ep recently, and I understand your concerns about exaggeration, wooden acting and your dislike for Lwaxana/Barrett (both?). But I remember enjoying this one more than I did with last week's what-did-they-smoke-Phantasms.

Re: TNG Season 6, Episodes 20-23

I've been expecting this part with great expectations, since I'm a huge fan of "Frame of Mind". Glad you liked it, too.
Minor nitpick: In the short summary of "Second Chances", it should be "eight _years_ earlier".

Re: VOY S4: Year of Hell, Part II

From the first time I've seen this two-parter, it did not feel original to me. As I'm familiar with a few Jules Verne novels, many scenes on the Krenim Time Ship seem blatantly plagiarized from "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". Anybody familiar to the story cannot neglect the parallels of the three main players in those scenes:

Nautilus - Krenim Time Ship (vessel isolated from and far superior to the world around it)
Cpt. Nemo - Annorax (dedicated leader of the crew, admirable villain, genius gone awry after losing his home and his family, killing for the sake of a felt necessity)
Ned Land - Tom Paris (rude, freedom-loving mutineer, refusing to adapt to a forced situation in contrast to the Other Good Guy)
Prof. Arronax - Chakotay (admiring and defending his opponent, trying to reason with Nemo/Annorax and to calm down Ned/Tom against any common sense)

It's been quite a time since I read the novel, so I cannot recount each and every parallel convincingly. But they go far deeper than I just described (Hell, they even - sort of - copied one of the names.)

Granted, transforming a (popular) classical story into a new context can lead to amazing results. But if it stays _this_ close to the original, it becomes annoying.

Re: Jammer's Reviews gets an upgrade

As much as I'd like to see the final TNG episodes here, I understand your wish to update your site. I believe anybody who has finished something personally important to be published (like an oil-on-canvas painting for sale, a self-written novel or a PhD thesis) can tell that there is no satisfaction in this before you can say there is nothing that needs to be improved.

Of course, I am looking forward to reading your final reviews. But quality cannot be achieved by pushing, and quality is what made me a fan of jammersreviews.com.