Star Trek - Voyager

[purlieu]

I tend to like that kind of thing. It's just when it's Chakotay on a "vision quest" having a boxing match and occasionally chatting to some sub-Prophets about something fairly nonsensical, I could probably do without it. I notice it's the lowest rated Voyager episode on IMDB.

[purlieu]

Think Tank. Some very good stuff, although I predicted most of the reveals, and it was very distracting having my partner laugh every time Jason Alexander appeared on screen.

[Mobbd]

Think Tank. Some very good stuff, although I predicted most of the reveals, and it was very distracting having my partner laugh every time Jason Alexander appeared on screen.

Hee! I'd forgotten about that one. I like how they're a Jedi Council of alien weirdos including, if memory serves, a machine that goes beep.

[Mr Trumpet]

Jason Alexander, a freaky lizard alien with no mouth, a beepy machine, and a Portuguese Man O' War. I don't know why they got so imaginative with aliens on this occasion. Feels more like something out of Farscape.

[purlieu]

Yes, I enjoyed the aliens a lot. And don't forget the anti-gravity whale.

Actually, I think watching Voyager alongside Farscape this year hasn't done it much favour. Although there are still some funny moments, I think it rarely goes the whole hog with humour in the way TNG and DS9 did. The great thing about The Bride of Chaotica was is was a lovely moment of levity on a show that potentially takes itself a touch too seriously at times.

[Lemming]

Strangely, I'm feeling the opposite while rewatching both shows - TNG can be very sterile and po-faced at times while Voyager feels like it offers the characters a lot more room to breathe, resulting in better character comedy. Seven and the Doctor in particular can be laugh-out-loud funny. Not to mention plenty of episodes that almost slide into sitcom territory - "Worst Case Scenario" and "Alter Ego" spring to mind, and the first half of "Real Life" (I found the ending funny too but I doubt the writers intended it that way). Also have very fond memories of some later episodes like "Body and Soul", "Live Fast and Prosper" and "Virtuoso".

Not that TNG is necessarily short on comedic moments and occasionally whole comedy episodes, but it feels to me like it tends to take itself far more seriously than Voyager on the whole.

[MojoJojo]

Jason Alexander, a freaky lizard alien with no mouth, a beepy machine, and a Portuguese Man O' War. I don't know why they got so imaginative with aliens on this occasion. Feels more like something out of Farscape.

This reminds me of the futurama bit where Al Gore, Nichelle Nicholas, Stephen Hawking, the D&D guy and Deep Blue are a team. The timing's right for the Voyager episode to be an inspiration.

[Deanjam]

They're up to the dreaded Retrospect episode on the Delta Flyers podcast and have drafted in co-writer Lisa Klink to review the episode. Probably a good idea to have a woman in the conversation. I'll be interested to hear the take on this 20 years later.

[purlieu]

Strangely, I'm feeling the opposite while rewatching both shows - TNG can be very sterile and po-faced at times while Voyager feels like it offers the characters a lot more room to breathe, resulting in better character comedy. Seven and the Doctor in particular can be laugh-out-loud funny. Not to mention plenty of episodes that almost slide into sitcom territory - "Worst Case Scenario" and "Alter Ego" spring to mind, and the first half of "Real Life" (I found the ending funny too but I doubt the writers intended it that way). Also have very fond memories of some later episodes like "Body and Soul", "Live Fast and Prosper" and "Virtuoso".

Not that TNG is necessarily short on comedic moments and occasionally whole comedy episodes, but it feels to me like it tends to take itself far more seriously than Voyager on the whole.

I get what you're saying, I suppose it's probably a combination of the TNG humour generally landing better for me than a lot of the Voyager stuff, and Voyager having far fewer outright comedy episodes (so far). And also I suppose TNG earns its seriousness in a way Voyager often misses.

[Deanjam]

They're up to the dreaded Retrospect episode on the Delta Flyers podcast and have drafted in co-writer Lisa Klink to review the episode. Probably a good idea to have a woman in the conversation. I'll be interested to hear the take on this 20 years later.

So apparently this episode was inspired by 90s Satanic-panic false-memories in children. How they got from there to the aired episode is quite the leap. McNeill, Wang, and Klink recognised that the episode had aged badly, but then also felt that changing the gender of the accuser would solve its issues. Which is worrying. Do they really believe men can't be sexually assaulted?

[Lemming]

Haven't listened to the Delta Flyers episode yet, but by coincidence I've just reached and watched Retrospect on my rewatch and there's no way it's anything other than an allegory for sexual violence. There's a bit of stuff about repressed memories and the unreliability of such which I can see the Satanic Panic stuff in, but relatively early on Seven says "he violated me", replete with dramatic scare chord, slow zoom on her face, and I think a cut to ad break. The Doctor repeats the same thing later - "he violated your rights as an individual" - and we get the unintentional comedy gold of Mr Wrongly Accused saying "on my world, an accusation alone is enough to ruin someone!!!".

It's a proper shocker of an episode, terrible television all around, and there's no way in hell the awful message (which seemed to be "this is all Seven's fault, why didn't she just shut up and stay quiet about it, the fact that this GREAT, NOBLE, INNOCENT MAN has melodramatically blown himself up is all on her) was accidental. It's distressing to watch the actors, especially Ryan and Picardo, do their absolute best with material that just sucks, both in its message and its entertainment value.

Gonna check out the podcast later tonight, really interested to see what they have to say about it in more detail, especially Klink who must be at least partially responsible for the whole disasterpiece.

[Lemming]

Just listened to the podcast and yeah - they seem to all agree that the sexual violence allegory was accidental and switching Harry or the Doctor into Seven's place would have remedied the apparent misunderstanding that many viewers had, by removing the most immediate connotations of assault and disbelieved allegations, and focusing it more clearly on the false memories stuff. But I just can't buy that the reading that virtually every single viewer took away from the episode was an accident, it's too blatant.

I get their eagerness to write the assault reading off as an unintended error and spend the podcast talking about the episode as if it were about something else instead, but in light of the way the episode ultimately turned out, it's so hard to believe that set out to write something with no connotations at all and just accidentally fumbled their way into the finished product. If it is the result of an accidental fuckup, it's one of the all-time record breaking megafuckups.

[Mobbd]

I get what you're saying, I suppose it's probably a combination of the Star Trek humour generally landing better for me than a lot of the Voyager stuff, and Voyager having far fewer outright comedy episodes (so far). And also I suppose TNG earns its seriousness in a way Voyager often misses.

My general feeling about TNG humour is that it's _about_ its own uptightness somehow. Picard in his little pants and being forced to go on holiday is my kind of TNG humour. Worf has such a bug up his butt and Data is so formal buy nature so any departure from that with "life forms" songs and Lwaxana or Q taking the piss is just kinda great and a joke on the show. Voyager can never have that because it's a little bit too absurd (or at least chilled out) at baseline.

[purlieu]

Yes, I'd agree with that too. These days I seem to enjoy humour a lot more if it's presented in a more serious context, which TNG definitely has.

Juggernaut. Middling action sci-fi B-movie homage. I suppose if I was feeling particularly ungenerous I could say that about Voyager in general, but this one really did feel like that. Bit of a slog.

[Mobbd]

I always found Juggernaut a bad one. I'd have named it in my Bottom Five from memory. Too similar to Dreadnaught, which wasn't even a favourite to begin with, but with less good storytelling and without the deep canon stuff to prop it up.

[purlieu]

Someone to Watch Over Me. Ah well that was bloody lovely.

[Deanjam]

Someone to Watch Over Me. Ah well that was bloody lovely.

Pygmalian in Space. Really funny episode (Seven of mine!), with a beautiful bittersweat ending.

[purlieu]

11:59. Fuck no.

[mothman]

Makes Threshold look good.

[Deanjam]

Threshold is stupid, but enjoyable in a daft way. 11:59 is dull, and it doesn't even star Chakotay.

[purlieu]

11:59 is proper "why did I watch that?" stuff. This season started really well but there's been a lot of barrel scraping lately.

[Lemming]

Not going to defend 11:59 but I do like the unbelievable brashness of having a romantic b-movie, almost totally unrelated to the show and characters, just randomly and inexplicably inserted into the middle of a season of Star Trek. It's such a peculiar thing that I can't bring myself to hate it.

[purlieu]

Yes, it's... brave. I'm just glad I'm not sitting down to watch a new episode once a week, that would have genuinely angered me.

[purlieu]

Relativity. Ah, now that was a lot of fun. A great time travel story with a decent amount of humour in it.

[purlieu]

Warhead. Another imaginative idea, although I can't help feeling it's one I've seen before. Still, nicely handled, and although the general 'soldiers following orders' motif isn't done subtly, it's always welcome.

[Deanjam]

Relativity. Ah, now that was a lot of fun. A great time travel story with a decent amount of humour in it.

At the risk of bringing the tone of the thread down. Seven looks gorgeous in her Star Fleet uniform. Like Troi on Next Gen, she should've worn this all the time.

[mothman]

I'll see your Seven, and raise you a Kira.

[Lemming]

The Starfleet uniform beats the catsuit but I still wish they'd given Seven a more Borg-y outfit. I always wonder how much of her body is meant to be still made of metal and covered in implants. You see metal going up her arm from one of her hands, but it's not clear how far up it goes. Would be cool if her entire torso was just made of metal strips or some shit like that, like a mechanical zombie, and there was a suitably strange high-tech outfit to match. It could even have stupid tubes full of glowing liquid and such. It'd doubtlessly be an insane ballache for the makeup and costume department to put together every episode though.

[purlieu]

The Starfleet uniform beats the catsuit but I still wish they'd given Seven a more Borg-y outfit. I always wonder how much of her body is meant to be still made of metal and covered in implants.

I bet you do you filthy bugger.

[Mr Trumpet]

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