Just when I wonder what new bland tale Voyager is going to present to me today, Brad Dourif shows up. I knew he appeared somewhere along the way but I couldn't remember where. He's quite possibly in my top 5 actors of all time, the man is amazing and one of the most talented actors ever. Unfortunately, he's always been typecast in the role of psychos and killers*, often in low budget horror films.
It's a little disappointing that the character of Lon Suder isn't a huge departure from that, but as the episode goes on he certainly goes through a change. In fact, he's not really in the episode enough for my liking, but Dourif is a master at giving nuanced and subtle performances that manage to project a huge amount of emotion, and it's no surprise that he acts circles around the rest of the cast... except for Tim Russ as Tuvok.
This really is Tuvok's episode, and what Tim Russ does here is quite fantastic. The writing is just elegant enough to sell the moral themes without bashing us over the head with them, and it's an interesting exploration of the motives behind violence that quite purposefully (I think) doesn't give us a final answer.
*having just watched through all the Child's Play/Chucky films, it was quite easy to imagine some of his dialogue in this episode fitting right with them. Anyway, if you want to see some of Brad Dourif's work then I was always won over by his roles in Deadwood, the ridiculous/fun techno horror film Death Machine (superior UK cut, if you can get it), an early episode of The X-Files, his breakout role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and of course as Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Review by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2017-11-03T16:32:38Z
Just when I wonder what new bland tale Voyager is going to present to me today, Brad Dourif shows up. I knew he appeared somewhere along the way but I couldn't remember where. He's quite possibly in my top 5 actors of all time, the man is amazing and one of the most talented actors ever. Unfortunately, he's always been typecast in the role of psychos and killers*, often in low budget horror films.
It's a little disappointing that the character of Lon Suder isn't a huge departure from that, but as the episode goes on he certainly goes through a change. In fact, he's not really in the episode enough for my liking, but Dourif is a master at giving nuanced and subtle performances that manage to project a huge amount of emotion, and it's no surprise that he acts circles around the rest of the cast... except for Tim Russ as Tuvok.
This really is Tuvok's episode, and what Tim Russ does here is quite fantastic. The writing is just elegant enough to sell the moral themes without bashing us over the head with them, and it's an interesting exploration of the motives behind violence that quite purposefully (I think) doesn't give us a final answer.
*having just watched through all the Child's Play/Chucky films, it was quite easy to imagine some of his dialogue in this episode fitting right with them. Anyway, if you want to see some of Brad Dourif's work then I was always won over by his roles in Deadwood, the ridiculous/fun techno horror film Death Machine (superior UK cut, if you can get it), an early episode of The X-Files, his breakout role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and of course as Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.