Star Trek: VOY Reviews - From Start to Suicide!

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Torres actually seems happy, pleasant, and satisfied with life. Since no women on Voyager can ever be happy without bonding with each other over mimosas while giggling, something must be up. She encounters Seven helping Icheb with his studies, and immediately bites his head off before collapsing. Icheb scans her, and comments that he's picking up another life sign, possibly a parasite. Apparently, Seven has been slacking on the human reproduction curriculum (dammit, Seven, Icheb is going to get some poor girl at the Academy pregnant after he insists, "It's OK baby, Borg babies come from maturation chambers, not my throbbing cock"). Seven calls the Doctor and reveals that she believes Torres to be pregnant. And now everyone in Engineering knows this incredibly intimate, personal detail, unless the fucking comm badges' speaker range is limited to a couple feet.

Now, you'd think given the current state of One Step home pregnancy tests that, by the 24th century, we truly would have figured out the moment you're pregnant by now, but I guess science wasn't getting as close as they claimed. Anyway, the Doctor says all's good with the pregnancy, but is somewhat surprised by Paris' and Torres' shock. Apparently, Tom's pull-out game is weak as fuck, but they figured it'd be cool since the chances of a human-Klingon pregnancy are so rare.

So rare that your fucking wife was one, Tom. Meaning that the odds are probably in your goddamn favor.

At the very least, the cast gets the opportunity to demonstrate a bit of range and actually manage to emote genuine happiness about it. The rumor quickly makes its way through the crew, and naturally, Neelix immediately demands to be godfather. Chuckles teases Torres a bit about it, but then Janeway shows up, and immediately tells her that she should take time off to "adjust", which sounds exactly like what a creepy Fortune 500 HR manager would say while secretly trying to figure out how to can you for getting knocked up inconveniently. She also says that Seven could fill in for her. Yes, the woman who you won't even give a uniform to, even though you gave all the Maquis one, is apparently the most qualified to be the backup chief of Engineering, above the rest of the staff. Torres, to her credit, tells her off. So, uh, mixed feminism messages aplenty.

Meanwhile, Tom goes to discuss fatherhood with Tuvok, who advises him to "anticipate paradox." He then goes back and fixes Torres a nice, romantic dinner, but her temper flares as they discuss all of the "helpful hints" and baby names people have been suggesting. Chell is name-dropped, because that's what continuity means to the Voyager writing staff.

The Doctor calls them both into sickbay, where he has some disheartening news - he's been able to put together a holographic representation of their baby's spine, which deforms after birth. In a fantastic example of the kind of throwaway bullshit that polluted the Trek canon, it's revealed that it's a common, genetic birth defect in Klingon females . Torres, and her mother, had it as well, and it was repaired via surgery. This inadvertently reveals the sex of the baby to the couple. The Doctor informs them that they can repair it by tweaking some genes en utero, but Tom, whose mind is always in the fucking holodeck, immediately inquires as to whether or not the Doctor can extrapolate the entire appearance of the baby via its DNA.

This is something that they can fucking do. This has huge implications for the entire Trek universe. Rape, murder, assault - virtually any violent crime not committed via phaser, all essentially solvable via the Holodeck. Got a girl you've been pining after, but she's not interested? Well, just get a stray hair or two and wire her up to the Holodeck, willing as can be. The jizz-mopper's lament.

Anyway, after a moment's hesitation, and an insistence that it'll be a mere "approximation" (but proximate enough to diagnose a deviated spine before Torres is even showing), the Doctor fires it up. To Torres' dismay, their bouncing baby girl will have forehead ridges, and Tom exclaims that she'll look just like her mother. Torres has a brief flashback to her own father saying much the same words to her.

As Torres drifts off to sleep that night, she remembers the camping trip her father took her on (where she somehow managed to engineer a better fishing rod and tackle, replete with blinking lights that obviously meant THE FUTURE to someone in the prop department). Her younger self tells her father that the other kids on the trip don't like her, and hesitates in going off to hike with them. The next morning, she convinces Tom that she wants to go to the Doctor's treatment by herself, and as he starts it, her memories continue - her younger self withdrawn from the other kids on the trip. Apparently, with good reason - while she looks away, one boy puts a worm on her sandwich. As she shrieks in surprise, the kid laughs, "My teacher said Klingons like live food," suggesting that the institutionalized racism regarding Klingons in the Federation is far more casual than I think we ever thought.

Torres wanders off to the hololab, and starts going all Janeway on the holographic representation of her baby. She somehow can identify the Klingon gene sequences by sight alone, and deletes them until the girl is almost entirely human. Torres takes these changes to the Doctor, and proposes using the same gene rewriting technique that he used to fix the baby's spine to remove her Klingon heritage. The Doctor, naturally, is appalled by the suggestion (and it's a shame that the Doctor is so frequently relegated to comedic roles, because Robert Picardo can do a damn fine job at being dramatic). And he tells her to GTFO and discuss her concerns with Tom.

Tom is also unhappy with the idea, calling her out that she simply doesn't want a Klingon daughter. She explains that she experienced rampant discrimination growing up, and that "when the people around you are all one way, and you're not, you can't help feeling like there's something wrong with you." Tom tries to proclaim that Voyager's diverse, but Torres calls out that it's almost entirely human. It's a scene that's almost too damn good for Voyager - it's strength still works today. It could apply to race, sexual identity, physical or mental disabilities, and all wrapped up in a science fiction device that's rapidly becoming science fact.

And then it goes off the fucking rails. Tom and Torres drag their disagreement to Janeway, with Torres proclaiming "I want you to order the Doctor to genetically alter my child." Janeway questions the ethics of it, and notes that Tom and the Doctor both share them, but Torres tries to pull some mother-to-mother bullshit, claiming that the situation is no different than what Janeway did to Seven. She is slapped the fuck down, but only after Tom accuses the whole thing of being due to her hormones, and then immediately tries to backpedal that statement when Torres blows up.

As Tom chases after Torres, trying to talk about it in the mysteriously and conveniently empty corridors, he suggests going to the holodeck for a change of scenery, and Torres snips that it's his solution to everything so that I don't have to. The fight devolves to the point where Tom decides to crash at Harry's.

Meanwhile, Torres recalls more from her camping trip, including a scene that she couldn't have possibly known because she wasn't there. Her father tries to comfort her with a story in which some kids gave him a nickname for falling asleep during class, and Torres, quite rightly, says that it's not the same. His only reply is that she has to be less sensitive. And later that night, as she's supposed to be sleeping, she overhears her father explaining to his brother that he's sure that she was acting out that day due to that sensitivity, and claims that it must be how "they" turn out as they get older. Further, he mentions that their parents told him not to marry Torres' mother as well.

The next morning, Torres is greeted by Chuckles, who informs her that "Taya" is the feminine form of "Chuckles" (I can't even type the real name any more, let's be honest, guys, I'm 155 episodes in, and nothing makes any fucking sense anymore.). He goes to have breakfast with Torres, but Tom conveniently shows up, and Chuckles bows out to sink into the background like almost every other damn episode. However, they're called back to sickbay, where the Doctor reveals that Torres' modifications will be necessary - the baby will die otherwise.

Tom seems dumbfounded, but the Doctor stresses moving quickly, having preemptively scheduled the procedure for the following morning. Since there's no opportunity for a second opinion, Tom takes it to the next best thing on the ship - Seven and Icheb. They discover errors in the Doctor's analysis, and Seven runs a scan over his program, discovering that it had been deliberately tampered with. And Torres is in sickbay, refusing to answer Tom's calls.

She's got the Doctor all ready to start the procedure. Tom gets Tuvok and they break in, revealing to the Doctor that he's been modified. He looks crushed as he realizes exactly who was responsible, and why, and agrees to be deactivated in the meantime. Tom asks Tuvok to leave, so he and Torres can talk out what happened. After an amount of yelling that is rather infrequent on Star Trek, Torres reveals that she and her father had been inseparable, but began to grow apart as she grew older. After the camping trip, she told her father that if he couldn't stand living with them, to leave. And so he did. And she's afraid that Tom will leave too. He reassures her, proclaiming that he'll never, ever leave, and that he's not her father.

Anyway, Torres apologizes to the Doctor and fixes his program, and asks him to be her daughter's godfather.

This is a bottle episode done right - very few visual effects, no forced B plots, strong writing - it was a chance for Roxann Dawson and Robert Duncan McNeill to actually act for a change, and they did an incredible job. They drove virtually the entire episode. In fact, the only things that really brought the episode down were scenes with other cast shoehorned in - Janeway, Chuckles, Neelix - and "holodeck magic." And, it did something surprising for Voyager, in that it emphasized that things aren't all well and good in the Federation. Racism is still endemic, even in an interplanetary society, and "diverse" crew members amount to diversity hires. It's incredibly human-centric, and the only times that Trek tends to deal with racism, the racist gets a relatively "easy" out. O'Brien comes to mind, with the excuse of the atrocities of the Cardassian war. Or hell, even Kirk, with the murder of his son.

The dashes of the "real Federation" that you sometimes see are far more illuminating than any direct time devoted to it. "Guess who's coming to dinner," anyone?

Rating: ****
Torpedoes remaining: -50/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 16
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 16

I know you gave that episode 4 stars but from your description is sounds like some godawful soap opera shit, with Brannon Braga's Magic DNA thrown in for good measure...

Voyager addresses issues like racism in such a superficial and infantile way. It's hard to take it seriously.

Considering that Torres mostly written as the equivalent of a emo goth girl that shopped at Hot Topic and whined about OMG NO ONE UNDERSTAAAAAANDS MEEEEE! for most of the series, this episode could have been considerably worse.

I'd say check it out for yourself

Which was the one where they found out the Maquis were dead, and she went in the holodeck to let herself get the shit beat out of her, and then heal herself with the regenerator?
I pointed out at the time that was the Trek equivalent of being a cutter, and the Voyager fans were all "you're wrong!! ", but they couldn't explain why.

Reminds me of the time I pointed out Trip actually got raped in the episode Unexpected. Apparently most of them saw T'Pol's bitchiness as cute, because they thought it meant she was jealous that he'd done it with another woman. And when you tried to point out the double standard by asking them how they would have reacted if it's been a male alien with say, Hoshi as the one that got preggers, and they said that, yeah, they'd totally see that as rape or at least feel uncomfortable about it, but because it was the other way around, "that makes it different! "

The universal rule is that prequels suck, with the Godfather Part II being the exception that proves the rule.

Enterprise's premise was shite to begin with. Throw in awful uncaring producers and a B-list cast, and you have a recipe for a complete shite television series, which ENT certainly delivered in spades.

I loved the series finale, because it was a giant "FUCK YOU" to the idiots who actually liked the show.

To be fair, this was 2001. People still thought women had all the responsibility to not get raped. Male assault was not to be thought of. Things have progressed considerably since then, so I'd like to think that lot can see it like that now.

Okay, geniuses.

Name one decent prequel.

I dare you.

Manhunter.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom qualifies as "decent."

More like a child being jealous that they got left outta recess games because their too clumsy and everyone worships the new kid that can at least grasp the rules of 4 square.

Season 4 loses entertainment value with multiple viewings, but given the previous run of UPN Trek to that point, Lauren Faust could've turned the cast into cartoon ponies in space and it still would've been better than most of the series.

Not a prequel. Next.

Nope. Giant piece of shit when compared with the brilliance of the original. Next.

Well, yes and no.

The entire premise of "Get Hard", is fear of gay rape used as comedy.
That came out just last year.

Well, it was actually 2005-6, but point taken. I can also remember it coming up again later than that, as I posted the SF Debris Opinionated Episode Guide to that episode in which he not only agreed with me but ranted about it and I got much the same response (with a few other supporters). Actually I think it was the imputes for me to leave TriS for a while. I suppose I could always find out if views have changed over there, but a lot of the people who were so very much opposed to my viewpoint and my pointing out of the double standard are gone now. I suppose you could always post about it over at TrekBBS's ENT forum.

"Santa Claus Is Coming To Town".

Now you're reaching.

And female on male rape is not only seen as generally funny, but also impossible with plenty of victim blaming thrown in for good measure.

"Batman: Year One".

Not a movie, but good one.

Let's not derail this thread too much, however. I think my point is proven.

Nope, its been adapted.

Mask of the Phantasm?

Anyway, it doesn't technically meet the definition of a prequel as it's just the origin story re-told. More of a re-imagining or re-boot along the lines of the amazing 2009 Star Trek movie.

Captain X disagrees!

Back to the topic:

You know, I think this was the one thing Enterprise got sort of right with the conflict between Vulcan and humans. Archer should've been far less petulant to make it work a bit better, though.

In true Trek fashion, DS9 (of course) deals with this when one of the orphaned changeling finds his way to the station during the middle of the war and Odo in Quark have a conversation where the latter shines light on the fact that diversity only extends to the humanoid variety that shares Federation views.

Quark got all the best Federation slamming lines on the show.

Repentance

Apparently, someone remembered that some of the best science fiction explores controversial topics in a safe, escapist space. Then they decided that Voyager needed to get in on that. It does not go well.

They waste no time, hopping right in to Voyager discovering a ship that's badly damaged. They beam the injured to sickbay, and the rest to the cargo bay. Tuvok heads down with a security detail, and finds that the ship was a prison transport. And the injured? Dangerous felons, one of whom are now holding Seven at...uh...prop-point? It's supposed to be sharp, I assume, but it looks more like a tuning fork. Of course, they're not going to have one of their leads get shanked and die midway through the season, so there's no actual tension or danger. Seven quickly gets away from this hardened murderer, and Tuvok phasers him through the Doctor.

Anyway, Janeway and Chuckles meet up with the Nygean warden, who reveals that the ship had escape pods, and that all the criminals were sentenced to be executed. Why they didn't put all the guards in the escape pod and let the ship of condemned murderers get blown the fuck up is utter nonsense. Certainly not very pragmatic. When the "enlightened" Starfleet crew who have participated in the deaths of hundreds of thousands discovers they're to be executed, they're all uncomfortable, but agree to help keep an eye on the prisoners until the Nygeans.

And, rather than just locking the murderers in a cargo bay that can be easily and safely monitored from outside, Tuvok gets entire cells set up in the cargo bay almost way too quickly. Like he was prepared to lock a ship full of assholes in there someday. I'd assume said assholes would be Voyager's own crew, naturally. The Nygean warden quickly establishes that he's going to be a hardass, requesting that Neelix send back his soup-and-rice dish for being too good for the prisoners. Now, Janeway and Chuckles are more than happy to not meddle in the affairs of the Nygean culture due to the Prime Directive, but they're more than happy to enforce Federation prisoner treatment guidelines, so Neelix gets to inflict his cooking on these already-tortured souls. He quickly establishes a rapport with a Benkaran prisoner, who appreciates his standing up to the warden.

Back in Sickbay, the Doctor and Seven debate the ethics of the situation. The Doctor is up on the high horse that gets issued with your comm badge and rank pips the first day out of the Academy, and Seven is basically Doctor Ron Paul, OB/GYN about the situation, stating that their executions will ensure they cannot commit further murders while not devoting unnecessary resources and costs to maintaining life sentences. The Doctor retorts that "killing is wrong, no matter who's doing it," apparently ignoring how perfectly willing he was a few weeks ago to let some random hospital administrator die in order to blackmail him into providing care.

In Makeshift Prison, the prisoner who tried to shank Seven starts acting out, and implies threats to the warden's children's lives, so naturally they start to beat the shit out of him. The Starfleet guards intervene, and this puts the warden in conflict with Janeway, who hands over control of the prisoners to Tuvok, claiming him to be qualified. Because, y'know, the one murderer they've ever had on board was so much trouble, they just let him chill in his quarters before he saved all their fucking lives. Clearly equivalent.

The Doctor calls Seven down to Sickbay, where he's caring for the beaten prisoner. He requests that she offer up some nanoprobes that he can reprogram to help repair some brain damage. Yes, that's right, the Doctor wants to shoot a man full of Borg nanoprobes without his informed consent, but is fucking serious about not executing him.

Meanwhile, Neelix takes more food to the prisoners, who are happy to be getting three squares a day. When enquiring about why the seemingly kind prisoner is to be executed, he explains that it's "common knowledge that all Benkarans are criminals", and implies that he was framed for a murder due to his race. Tom goes to Neelix, and asks if one has to be a criminal to be fed. Striking up a conversation, Neelix discusses how he's discovered that while Benkarans occupy only 10% of Nygean space, they make up 80% of their prison population. Tom's flippant response? "Maybe they commit more crimes."

TO RECAP: Voyager has decided they're going to do an episode that addresses systemic racism and ignorance of mental health issues in the criminal justice system, and they're going to have their only lead in a bi-racial relationship be, essentially, a stereotype of someone being blissfully ignorant of racial injustice. And Torres is basically fine with it! Yes, the same Torres that, in the last episode, felt like she had to wipe her baby's racial identity clean to make sure she wasn't the victim of the exact same types of racism, prejudice, and apathy on display right fucking now.

Tom even goes so far as to remind Neelix that he's been in prison before, and that everyone has a story about how it's not their fault. That's right, he's equating death row with his fucking vacation in a Federation white-collar day camp in Australia. Neelix calls him out on that bullshit, and the music swells like it's an after-school special episode of goddamn Full House.

The Doctor discovers that, after treating the prisoner, he's far better mannered, especially after he kept hitting him up with more and more nanoprobes. Dammit, Doctor, this is how you get Borg. The prisoner starts having a panic attack, overcome by guilt over what he's done for the first time. He accuses them of inflicting some kind of punishment on him via the nanoprobes. But the Doctor soon discovers that the nanoprobes have been very efficient little workers - they've set up new neural pathways that fixed his sociopathy. That's right, the Borg can fucking cure mental diseases now. And the prisoner comes to the conclusion that he deserves to die for what he did.

Back in the cargo bay, Neelix is spending time playing that goofy looking board game with his prisoner friend. He soon discovers that, in Nygean society, after you're convicted, the victims get to choose your sentence. Some let them go free. Others request the death penalty. And as a prisoner, if you're of means, you can likely sway their opinion on the matter. So, we're tossing economic disparity onto the pile of issues we're covering today. I'm sure that'll go well. Neelix offers to try to convince Janeway to give up shit that she shouldn't be handing out like candy to try to compensate his friends' victims, but he says that will only imply guilt.

The plight of the Doctor's patient piques Janeway's curiosity, and she argues with the warden that he deserves further consideration, as he's now, in effect, completely rehabilitated. The warden isn't buying it, but admits that he could appeal to his victims. And the prisoner doesn't even want it due to his guilt, even after Seven reveals that she feels much the same guilt, knowing how many people she victimized as a Borg. Seven is stricken when she learns that the family has no interest in hearing his appeal, and that Janeway refuses to give him asylum. She argues that he should be given the same opportunity that Janeway gave Seven, but Janeway hints that she's being a little selfish, and is looking for a cure for her own guilt. Sisterhood of the fucking traveling pants.

Anyway, a random ship starts to attack Voyager, and despite shields and everything, this brings down half the forcefields in the jail almost instantly. I guess Tuvok wasn't qualified to be a warden, and maybe, just maybe, bars are a better form of confinement than forcefields. The reformed prisoner is stuck behind the remaining forcefield, but the rest, all Benkaran, Neelix's friend included, immediately overpower the Starfleet guards. Voyager is essentially saying that, given the opportunity, the race that you've essentially equated to black people will riot and commit violence, and that they live up to their negative reputation. Neelix's friend manages to get a hold of the warden, and goes to phaser the fuck out of him, but the reformed prisoner speaks up, demanding to kill him himself. The warden proclaims that he knew he hadn't changed, but he quickly gives the phaser to the warden, who takes out the remaining Benkarans.

The warden convinces the family to hear out the appeal of the reformed prisoner, who gives a heartfelt apology for what he's done. Meanwhile, Neelix reveals to his ex-friend that a letter Neelix sent for him was traced to Voyager, and it was the prisoner's brother who attacked. The prisoner quickly starts a ploy to try to get shot up with nanoprobes as well, but Neelix tells him to fuck off with that bullshit.

Seven's disheartened to learn that the reformed prisoner's appeal was rejected. In another Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants moment, Seven feels that it's unfair he was punished for taking one life, while she got off scot free for taking countless. Janeway consoles her, saying that the years of her life given to the Borg were punishment enough, but this is coming from the woman who started a Borg civil war resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of drones, each of which equally able to be given their autonomy back, just as Seven and the Borg kids had been, so it's kind of a shallow gesture.

Fuck, what a mess. They were trying to explore a deep topic, while diving into the shallow end headfirst. I don't even think Harry was in this episode, so he's lucky to have fucking escaped. They literally tried to point out all of the inequities in our prison system here in America, and then immediately go on to say that, well, all those fucking criminals deserve their lot unless they're magically "proven cured" by science. Apparently they've never seen A Clockwork Orange to know how that can turn out.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: -50/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 16
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 16

X-Men: Days of Future Past

It's not even the first time. The Kazon were former slaves that, once free, terrorized their corner of the Delta quadrant with their thuggish ways.

Quick reminder, the Kazon looked like this:



And the guy that represented their former masters looked like this:



You guys probably didn't notice before. It was real subtle.

I didn't even remember that the Kazon were slaves.

Yup, they were owned by the Trabe.

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Trabe

DS9 is of course kind of special. They certainly broke some new ground and they did it in a spectacular fashion.

Doesn't mean that like half of the episodes are crap too. It's much more bipolar than the other series. While TNG was like a rock where you could count on a certain level of quality (and boredom), you could never tell with DS9. Would we get a 'Sacrifice of Angels' next? Or would it be a snoozeworthy Dax/whatever alien rom-com?

Where DS9 really succeeded were some of the characters. Hardly any show ever pulled of something like Garak or Dukat. I liked how they made them real, like with that Cardassian alcoholic Dukats-helpling-guy who went all resistance in the end. On the other hand, you'd have Dax. Highs and lows, so close together.

However, what remains in memory is DS9's finale furioso. They certainly made the character development pay off in the end. Still, they also had completely useless Dax-2 episodes in the last season. Highs. Lows.