Frustratingly, Sato-chichi looks more like a Sato-appa (Korean, rather than the Japanese man his name implies). That said, it was no doubt motivated by the casting department trying to choose an actor who could plausibly be Linda Park's father—and since she's Korean, that almost certainly means casting a Korean man to play her dad. It's still worth nitpicking, because as much as I love Hoshi I object to the casting of a South Korean actor to play a Japanese character.
Belated edit: I finally got my head straight after a bit of research that I should have done before posting this review… Sato-san is portrayed by the same actor as Buck Bokai in DS9—a Hawaiian-born actor named Keone Young, whose parents were Chinese and Japanese immigrants. No Korean ancestry to be found anywhere; the surname "Young" led me to unwarranted assumptions. Nearly 19 months later, I shamefully retract my nitpick, and I will be more careful about checking my assumptions against facts going forward.
Star Trek episodes wherein a character phases out of normal reality but can still walk around the ship (albeit while passing through the bulkheads and most other solid objects) annoy me. How can they still breathe when the air is still in normal phase? If other people can't see them, and the ship's sensors can't detect them, how can they see? How can they hear? How do they not fall through the floor while they're walking through doors and bulkheads?
I had the same questions during TNG's "The Next Phase", but they'll never be satisfactorily answered. At the end of the day, the walking around is just a plot device, as is the "phasing" itself. But in this particular case, there's another annoying plot hole: Once Hoshi realizes that she simply passes through solid matter, why is she "trapped" in the gym all night after that? She could have just walked through the bulkhead, just as her hand passed through the free weights. For that matter, why do her clothes fade away too? She changed out of her uniform for the gym, so her gym clothes should be unaffected by the transporter accident and should remain fully visible even as her body disappears.
All of the plot holes with Hoshi being out of phase in this particular episode are probably explained away by the episode's cardinal sin: Making it all a dream. See, none of the episode really happened except for beaming from the planet's surface back to Enterprise. The rest was entirely in Hoshi's head.
I'm resisting the urge to give this episode a higher score. The absurd science and the aforementioned cardinal sin aside, I've loved every one of Hoshi's character episodes so far. But I didn't love it so much that I can excuse the writing.
Review by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2018-02-10T22:19:45Z— updated 2019-09-07T05:15:44Z
Frustratingly, Sato-chichi looks more like a Sato-appa (Korean, rather than the Japanese man his name implies). That said, it was no doubt motivated by the casting department trying to choose an actor who could plausibly be Linda Park's father—and since she's Korean, that almost certainly means casting a Korean man to play her dad. It's still worth nitpicking, because as much as I love Hoshi I object to the casting of a South Korean actor to play a Japanese character.Belated edit: I finally got my head straight after a bit of research that I should have done before posting this review… Sato-san is portrayed by the same actor as Buck Bokai in DS9—a Hawaiian-born actor named Keone Young, whose parents were Chinese and Japanese immigrants. No Korean ancestry to be found anywhere; the surname "Young" led me to unwarranted assumptions. Nearly 19 months later, I shamefully retract my nitpick, and I will be more careful about checking my assumptions against facts going forward.
Star Trek episodes wherein a character phases out of normal reality but can still walk around the ship (albeit while passing through the bulkheads and most other solid objects) annoy me. How can they still breathe when the air is still in normal phase? If other people can't see them, and the ship's sensors can't detect them, how can they see? How can they hear? How do they not fall through the floor while they're walking through doors and bulkheads?
I had the same questions during TNG's "The Next Phase", but they'll never be satisfactorily answered. At the end of the day, the walking around is just a plot device, as is the "phasing" itself. But in this particular case, there's another annoying plot hole: Once Hoshi realizes that she simply passes through solid matter, why is she "trapped" in the gym all night after that? She could have just walked through the bulkhead, just as her hand passed through the free weights. For that matter, why do her clothes fade away too? She changed out of her uniform for the gym, so her gym clothes should be unaffected by the transporter accident and should remain fully visible even as her body disappears.
All of the plot holes with Hoshi being out of phase in this particular episode are probably explained away by the episode's cardinal sin: Making it all a dream. See, none of the episode really happened except for beaming from the planet's surface back to Enterprise. The rest was entirely in Hoshi's head.
I'm resisting the urge to give this episode a higher score. The absurd science and the aforementioned cardinal sin aside, I've loved every one of Hoshi's character episodes so far. But I didn't love it so much that I can excuse the writing.