My #StarTrekVoyager rewatch S4E20 Vis à Vis

The holodeck is getting tiresome; we watch Paris play auto mechanic as the Doctor berates him about his duties in Sickbay. Tom is being a pain in the ass and there’s nothing about how the ship was torn apart over the last two episodes.

The alien ship is powered by a “coaxial warp drive.” Paris says it can allow a ship to travel huge distances instantaneously but I think it’s about free cable. But keeping with the mechanic motif, Paris has a technobabbley way to save the alien ship. Also, the budget must have grown because the alien has more latex on his forehead than usual.

Tom’s also being a misanthrope again. Why not go back to that well? The coaxial drive “draws in subatomic particles and reconfigures their internal geometries.” It’s like they’re not even trying.

Now Tom’s being an ass to B’Elanna. Was there any clue about this coming? Because it seems like bad writing. Practically halfway through the episode and I realize the alien is Bulldog from Frazier. This was too-slow of a build for something that is essentially “Face Off.”

But Vis à Vis literally means “Face to Face” so no surprise there. I suppose that Tom being an ass created the opportunity for “Tom” to move around Voyager undetected, but it all feels awkward and false.

This might have been slightly more interesting if “Tom” had switched bodies with Janeway while they were in the same room together. Huh. That’s what happened but it’s still not very interesting. That’s it. Everyone gets back in their own bodies and Tom makes up with B’Elanna. Everything is reset to normal with no consequences. Again. Meh.

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My #StarTrekVoyager rewatch S4E19 The Killing Game Part 2

Last time: the Hirogen had taken over the ship and were forcing the crew to act out scenarios from Earth’s history. A WWII fantasy is escaping the holodeck into the rest of the ship. I wasn’t impressed with part 1. Hopefully, this one is better.

In a metaphor for the show’s new status quo, Janeway & Seven know what’s going on. Everybody else is little better than a side character. The head Hirogen, who thinks holodeck tech is the key to saving his race from extinction is tying everyone else’s hands.

Along the way, there’s a nice character moment with Janeway and Chakotay but only sort of because Chakotay doesn’t know who he is. According to Paris, Nazis are “totalitarian fanatics bent on world conquest — the Borg of their day.” Ugh.

Janeway’s alone with the lead Hirogen. If this is true Trek, she’ll offer to help his plan to stop extinction. She strikes the deal. ✔

Too much time left for that to be the end. The other Hirogen must rebel. They do. ✔

But not without a pep talk first from a holographic Nazi.

Soon the one Hirogen who’s not a complete idiot is dead. The species is doomed, but not before a lot of tedious conflict. The pacing is terrible. There’s a subplot in Holodeck One with some Klingons but it doesn’t advance the story. It’s filler that provides screen time for the Doctor & Neelix.

Neelix is a ridiculously bad Klingon. Eventually, the Klingons kill some of the Nazis. That’s not too bad. Finally, there’s a truce. Janeway gives the Hirogen holodeck tech which is probably useless without the smart one.

The Hirogen, like the Nazis, are headed for the dustbin of history. There’s more action in Part 2 but it’s not interesting. What might have been one halfway decent episode is ruined by filler as it’s stretched to two. Must have been fun to write though. I hope the writers had more fun than I did.

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S4E15 “Hunters.”

Voyager is stealing cable to talk to Starfleet in the alpha quadrant and the Hirogen don’t like it. I wanted to see more of the Hirogen, but the face painting thing is too clichéd for me.

It’s weird to see the crew have hope. I predict the writers will use this for some cheap pathos.

Meanwhile, Pro Tip: Don’t want to hire an extra to play a corpse? Throw an empty costume on a biobed and claim there’s been a “complete osteotomy.” That’s technobabble for “This alien has been fileted.”

So, yeah. Letters from home. We get cheap pathos in spades; some of it’s organic, like news about the Maquis, but a lot, like Harry whining about not getting a letter, is just annoying. And Neelix hovering over everyone as they read their letters… Ugh. Très creepy. You’d think there’d be a better way to deliver e-mail in the 24th Century.

And I’ve lost interest in the Hirogen; they’re a completely forgettable morass of hunting clichés and despite having warp drive, they’re idiots. Maybe it gets better, but for now, they rank with the early Ferengi, utterly one-dimensional. At least they aren’t the Kazon.

It was fun watching Janeway be a complete and total badass, but that didn’t make up for the rest of the episode.

This one did not work for me.

S4E14 Message in a Bottle

The Doctor’s alpha quadrant adventure is pure cheesy fun! Andy Dick works well as an even haughtier Emergency Medical Hologram Mark 2. It’s a joy watching them play off of each other.

Auto correct tried to give me “Andy Duck.” I’d watch that too.

I could have done without the Paris and Kim side plot. In 2021 it seems silly that something as important as the EMH program doesn’t have a backup.

I would have preferred more of the Hirogen subplot. I don’t remember anything about them and they seem interesting.

But at least we’re finally moved the big “voyage home” story forward. From now on it’s less Star Trek: Gilligan’s Island and more Doctor Who: Blink sans the Weeping Angels of course. An above-average episode.

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S4E13 “Waking Moments.”

Starts strong with an atmospheric teaser that’s almost a collection of vignettes. It’s obvious that the crew is dreaming. It’s nicely disorienting, evoking the feel of a dream before they make the fact undeniable.

There are some nice moments, like some real comedy with Tuvok. Sadly, I’m most impressed that B’Elanna’s uniform has a pocket; it’s functional.

Another vision quest. Yawn. But Chakotay carrying a spear in the dreamscape is hilarious. That’s not Freudian at all.

Ultimately, a mediocre episode that I had a hard time caring about. Aliens living in dreams make little to no sense. But lucid dreaming is a cool idea. Check out Ed: “Captain Lucidity”. It’s a much better episode. #Ed #Stuckeyville

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(This is the point where I started tweeting the episodes.) S4E12 “Mortal Coil.”

I’m in the middle of a Star Trek Voyager rewatch and I’m up to “Mortal Coil.” As soon as I heard the word protomatter I knew someone was going to die and be brought back to life. Sure enough, Neelix gets zapped and is revived by Seven’s nanoprobes.

Of course, it had to be Neelix. The episode is now about questioning religious beliefs. They wouldn’t try that with a human character.

The most amazing thing so far is how damn dumb Chakotay is. He’s on his way to watch a holodeck recreation of the accident and he invites Neelix along without batting an eye. “Sure! Come watch yourself die! That won’t traumatize you at all!”

This got heavy-handed fast. And of course, there has to be a vision quest that inexplicably requires a piece of technology.

Neelix contemplates his new condition and the episode almost stops without any real ending. This might be okay if they circle back to it, but without a real epiphany, this is merely a return to the status quo.

It’s a pleasant enough episode but ultimately unsatisfying.

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I’m not always a good Trekkie or Trekker. Whichever.

Until about 2 years ago, I hadn’t rewatched Star Trek: Deep Space 9 or Voyager since their first airings twenty-odd years ago. I’d done partial rewatches of TNG and Enterprise that petered out toward the end of the series.

Of course, rewatching wasn’t always as easy as it is now. The Next Generation attempt was actually quite an investment. I’d had some old VHS tapes that we recorded during the first run of the series but those were getting old and they weren’t exactly taped in order. But then in March of 2002, CBS started releasing TNG on DVD. The seasons cost just over $100 each, and I thought, “Here we go! I’m going to enjoy these, in order from beginning to end as the Great Bird of the Galaxy intended!” Although he probably didn’t. Long story short, this was about the time I got serious about finishing my doctorate and finding a tenure-track position somewhere. Season 7 is still wrapped in cellophane.

Fast forward to 2019; I finally started enjoying Deep Space 9 again. I’d made it into the fourth season and it was, shall we say, better than I remembered. But the 25th Anniversary of Voyager was approaching and my old friend Rick announced that he would be talking about Voyager season by season on his podcast Starbase 66. That itself sounded like fun! I’ll listen to those! Okay then, Voyager it is, I’ll get back to DS9 later.

And the rewatch has been interesting. I distinctly remember initially finding Voyager electrifying. I watched the first few episodes twice within a week of their airing and hunted for clues on the internet about what might be coming. That quickly turned into a kind of low-key malaise about the show. The characters seemed formulaic and a lot of the episodes felt like they might have sat on the shelf since TNG because they hadn’t quite been good enough to film. I mean, seriously, you’re trying to get home and that’s 70,000 light-years away! How do you keep running into the Kazon? You should have been out of their space after episode 3 or something. Think about the premise for crying out loud! This is Star Trek: Gilligan’s Island. The Mosquitos didn’t come back to the Island after they decided that the Honey Bees were a better band who would threaten their success. You encounter them ONCE because you’re STUCK ON THE ISLAND!

So the Voyager rewatch has been happening for a bit over a year. It’s been a lot of fun even with the show’s flaws. Once again, better than I remembered.

Mid-season 4, I decided to tweet about the episodes. I liked how those came out. I restricted myself to a maximum of 6 tweets and that kept the comments pithy; no weird tangents or references to Gilligan’s Island. I can’t believe that was kicking around in my brain somewhere.

Turns out that’s a pretty efficient way to “review” a teevee episode and that’s a good thing. Two years ago I started a post about Mad Magazine and it’s still gestating there in my drafts folder waiting to see the light of day. So that’s what you’ll find in this “Voyager Rewatch” column. Short efficient quasi-reviews as I work my way through the series. Basically, the same as they appeared on Twitter before they’re so far back in the past that they’re hard to find. I hope you’ll join me and enjoy.