For once, Chakotay's fake Native American stuff isn't all that bad. That's possibly because it involved other characters too, and I found myself feeling quite sympathetic toward his father. Outside of those flashbacks, things aren't quite as interesting and the aliens-influencing-ancient-Earth-culture feels a bit overdone now. Present-day Chakotay has an unbearable air of smugness about him which needs addressing, while young Chakotay seems to be a complete brat - but it's easier to understand where that's coming from when it's clear he's completely not happy where he is. Which makes it all the more weird that he's so in tune with his heritage as an adult.
The story with the Doctor giving himself the flu was much more enjoyable. The show did seem to forget that he has experienced pain before, though ('Projections').
-We are just gonna reanimate a random robot we found in space without any security precautions, yeah, no, we didn't learn anything from the borg experience...
It might feel like Q is just shoe-horned in to the various Trek series by this point, and after his pointless appearance on DS9 you'd be right in thinking so. There's an especially dangerous area in including Q in this show, because he could get them home in an instant and the writers would need to consistently give us reasons why Q doesn't just send them back to Earth that don't feel ridiculous.
It's surprising, then, how well this episode does manage to get him on to Voyager and even more so how it pushes his character in a very different direction than the pure comedy that has come before.
We are given a classic Trek conundrum, a moral dilemma about whether somebody should be allowed to take their own life or spend eternity trapped in a prison. Some of the writing aspects of that could have been handled better, I thought (Janeway is no Picard when it comes to this sort of stuff), but there's some elegance to it. I especially liked the portrayal of the Q Continuum as a long road in a desert. But the episode does drag in parts, and as mentioned above, the moment when Q teases sending the ship back to Earth just feels cruel.
Q2 is also a very sympathetic character, far removed from the Q we know so well. What most intrigues me, though, is that Q becomes so much more interesting when he's being serious. There's a nice chemistry between John de Lancie and Kate Mulgrew, and hopefully his future appearances will be equally as fun. Nice appearance by Riker, too.
A real struggle to get through despite having the great Michael McKean. In fact, in many ways he's part of the episode's problem as he is so over-the-top. The whole thing has a horrendous visual style and it pushes the cringe factor to high levels. It feels extremely low-budget. Trek has been guilty of doing this before (TNG's 'Cost of Living' to name one), but apparently any kind of alien party needs to include jugglers, fire breathers and weirdos doing interpretive dance. It's like being in a damn circus and it's certainly nobody's idea of a good time.
And then, the episode manages to pull out a couple of really excellent moments that shows there was something good hiding underneath. Namely, the Doctor's first appearance when he saves Harry from surgery is excellent comic timing and performed wonderfully, and the final moments with holographic Janeway revealing what they've done is a really powerful scene. Both Kate Mulgrew and McKean do truly excellent work and have great dialogue as we fade out, and it's a shame that 95% of the episode is not worthy of that. Indeed, a story about the power of fear should be one of the most relatable, so what happened here is extra disappointing.
Baby Harry in a Stafleet uniform is also worthy of a giggle.
Plays into a few too many tropes and is a bit cheesy - Voyager travels back to 1996 because that was the cheapest option then - but there's some nice nostalgia in watching it now in that the 90s feel so long ago.
Sarah Silverman's character is kind of derailing the whole thing at this point, they've written her in the most obvious and cliched ways possible. There always has to be a geeky inhabitant of the time period who just happens to be into sci-fi things.
"No time!", says the man in a time ship.
I did laugh at Neelix and Kes enraptured by a soap opera.
I knew he’d show up but not that version!
At least this one is entertaining. Despite the fact that it mainly warns us about the dangers of adolescent popstar live.
It's also very long to start. Its 1h10 could easily be packed into 45 minutes. The whole Rachel awkard teen's story and how she can so easily be influenced by a toy telling her to believe in herself is way too long. First as usual with this type of character, I have a very hard type believing that a girl that looks like her would be in this situation at school. And it's not like she's even useful in anything as a character. She's just a plot device. She wants the Ashley Too, and she wants to do what she says. That's it. She's such a huge fan and that's her whole character. OK, the fact that she says that when face to face with Ashley that is tied to her bed and just woke up from a coma a few seconds ago, that's funny. But she doesn't do a single thing. She's in a back fangirling while Jack drives. She does nothing while Ashley Too unplugs the real one and Jack is handling the bodyguard. She does nothing at the end while Jack is actually playing with her idol. Such a loooong exposition for a character that has nothing to do after. I mean it goes through all the cliches and then deliver nothing...
I'm not really in the Miley Cyrus demographic, never seen her, maybe heard one song, I mostly have seen her in tabloids stories. But wow, I found her very good. As the cheery popstar, as the depressed ex child star (but maybe they're not such composition roles) and very much as the robot voice. Through the whole beginning the only interesting parts were hers, and the real story starts at Ashley Too's awakening.
This second part was fun, though it looked more part of a teen show than a BM episode.
As for the tech part, it's a lot less dark than usual. There's basically no downside. Previous season had a way harsher treatment on the duplicating consciousness thing. That was a constant theme in last season, with very dramatic to horrific consequences, but here it's like they wanted to show, look, it can be fun too. Very not Black Mirrory.
However it's not like we're talking about every day technology as it is usually the case. Even in this world, the tech used seems to be revolutionary. And that makes no sense in the story. So the aunt, or her company, or people who work for her anyway, manages to map an entire mind, industrial scale, and they use it for... a pop star doll ? Also it was cheaper to have a miniature doll with the capacity of containing and running the whole thing and put a limiter on it, than to just map and put the tiny part you want to use ?
Then their holographic tech, that seems pretty good too. Though weird moment when Catherine is in front of the (probably mostly teenage fangirls) audience and does her Apple keynote, being happy to be back into the most lucrative part of the business. She actually says that. Not at a tech investor meeting, in front of the live audience. Also fully customizable (even her clothes!) and scalable, like that's not the easiest part of an hologram.
And then there's this machine that allows to decipher songs from the brain of a coma patient ! That's fucking amazing. The applications just for medecine, are unimaginable. And the other ways it could be exploited...
I can think of a thousand ways to make a shitload of money with that without needing to drug your niece into a coma ! They litterally invent technology worth hundreds of billions of dollars just to make a few millions out of a teenage pop star ! Pretty weird when the aunt's character is just presented as being driven by money.
And what's with the dad's machine ? It shows a brain, so I thought he was working on rat's brains, but he just has a small rat chasing robot ? And, without knowing anything (it's repeated enough), you can plug a toy, see it's brain and edit the limiter on it ? That was worse than any hacking scene in movie history, but maybe it was a joke on that ? Didn't feel like it.
Anyway, by far the best episode of the season, but that's not saying much. And still not a Black Mirror episode. I rate it 7 because it was entertaning, but if I was to rate it as if it was a BM episode, that would be lower.
A real BM episode would have gone over the spying part of the Ashley Too technology. A lot to do with that alone. And like I already said, all the brain mapping thing, there was a lot of ways to exploit that, though it was kinda alredy done in last season, there were still lots of possibilities.
Kinda liked the suggestion that if you're not kept under hallucinogenics drugs you would real music instead of pop :)
The one long continuous tracking shot at the end of the episode was fucking amazing!!! Watch the episode for that shot, seriously omg
This episode makes sense on these corona days :)
Guard in the bank holds his gun and says "we are quarantined".
It is like covid. A virus is on way but it is disabled to spread to other people.
I could not understand why it cant make infected. To threaten those people to make plane come?
Where is real virus?
That plane could not get off and in the end scene, a plane was burning. They are same planes?
So, berlin is not so powerful as i saw. Even he cant get off.
And raymond was with liz in the park, around lots of agents. Noone is shooting or any guns those only to make blackout.
I gae 7 / 10. For a virus and quarantine and for raymond :)
I honestly don't understand why the writers always make Liz go back and forth when it comes to Raymond only for her to keep changing her mind. And Megan's acting always makes it worse every time. It's like they purposely cast her to play Liz because she and her acting as the character make Liz so annoying. Or they had her act the character to be annoying. Either way, it's stupid.
Another prime example of Janeway´s "I do whatever I want as long as it suits my needs and to hell with everyone who disagrees" attitude. The end should never justify the means. She´s always trying to force her point of view upon others.
But the producers were right in letting Kes go and bringing in Seven. Kes was going nowhere and Seven brought something to Voyager that was lacking. And I don´t mean tight jumpsuits. She was a strong opposite to Janeway.
This is one of the hardest episodes to stomach on a rewatch. The funky dialogue just grates my nerves to the point where I have to stop paying attention lest I go insane. The premise is not bad but the execution is awful.
The intriguing setup leads into what turns out to be a surprisingly boring episode. Janeway goes into her no-nonsense-no-arguments mode which only further solidifies her lack of definition as a captain and a character, refusing to listen to questions or advice from anyone. The plot attempts to explain this by the magical use of the "Omega particle" and it's priority over everything, including the Prime Directive. Hmm, nope, that's doesn't work for me and isn't enough. It's something that's come out of nowhere and isn't given anywhere near enough explanation: is it man-made or naturally occurring? If it's artificial, then how do random species across the galaxy all happen to stumble over making it? And surely there are all sorts of other equally dangerous substances encountered all across Star Trek that don't receive this level of paranoia?
While I also saw the semi-religious aspects of the episode as a failure (Seven's reverence of a particle is nonsense), I think that Jeri Ryan manages to save the episode from being a complete disaster. She sells Seven's feelings well and gets some excellent moments of conflict with the Captain. These scenes are ones which are making the show in general far better - somebody really needed to challenge Janeway's decision making and the scenes only help to improve both of the characters. By the same token, however, if Seven keeps on doing this then it's going to show a real lack of character development for her which would be a shame.
Very odd scene in which Seven begins treating the crew like Borg drones and Chakotay is perfectly fine with it. Seven seems to have rank privileges over Starfleet crew members now?
Yep, I've forgotten this one already.
It's kind of insulting that the show, often derided for its use of the reset button and lack of consequences, makes an episode in which the characters literally forget it ever happens. I also find it ridiculous that Voyager doesn't have any kind of basic security cameras or way of verifying that Kellin was ever on board. I get that there's a virus to destroy all traces of her presence, but it's a massive oversight.
Also, I thought we were told that transporter technology won't work on her species? Whatever. I wasn't paying that much attention - there was paint drying on the wall next to me.
Pretty enjoyable, but then again it's always a fun time to see regular characters acting so different. Echoes of a Mirror Universe episode as it begins. But, is it just me, or does Janeway not actually seem all that different from her usual self...?
Robert Picardo does a stellar job as usual. I'm kind of surprised that the EMH backup has never been mentioned before. But then again, this is Voyager where each episode just does its own thing, so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.
The ending wraps things up a bit quick. I think the episode spends too long going through the early parts without the Doctor, when the episode would have benefited more from spending time with him and what he can do to help these people see the truth.
Guest star Ray Wise makes this episode special, but even without him it would have been one of Voyager's stronger outings. I wish it had been more like this up to this point. The episode builds upon the relationships and experiences of the crew up to the point and takes what they've gone through into consideration. It also directly addresses Janeway's tendency to make selfish decisions without thinking the consequences through. However, I get the feeling that she won't particularly learn from this experience...
The Dauntless is a fascinating ship before it's revealed to be a lie. It's clear something is up early on - not only because we know that any opportunity for the crew to get home is going to fall through, but because the fancy new technology hasn't been developed or mentioned over on DS9.
Great scenes between Janeway and Seven, and a nice entry in the ongoing story. It's mostly unknown territory from this point forward for me, so this episode gives me hope that the quality may improve from here on.
Frack,.. Frack,... Frakitty, Fracking, FRACK!!!! That having been said, Don't read any further if you are one of those folks who whine and moan about episode details in the comments, cuz thar' be spoilers below...Sweetie!!!
Quin: "Who AM I? If I'm Nightfall, how can I exist, because Nightfall is DEAD!" Timey-whimey-wibbly-wobbly-loop de loopy-ness to the n-teenth power! Or, to quote the great philosopher Sara Conner, there is no fate except the one we make."
This was indeed an intense, aptly titled episode. IDK if Invictus directly infected Bolo with doubt, or, as Bolo himself opined, that his very freedom from imprisonment simply allowed him to see the vagaries and chaos of the universe, thus, just as one cancer cell can metastasize into full blown disease, his doubt blossomed and fractured his mind and spirit. The end game of course being to turn Ash against the rest of the crew and switch her allegiance to Invictus.
Pretty diabolical, especially when she SAW what occurred, and HAS to know that Gary didn't suddenly gain arm transforming powers to facilitate the murder of her "Brother". She must have the internal fortitude to disregard the mirage of lies that she has been presented, and suss out the actual truth of the situation, that, it wasn't Gary that killed her brother (as Bolo said, he was ALREADY dead), but Invictus. If she can muster the courage to see this reality, rather than the manipulation, then Invictus will have truly overplayed his hand, as he will have actually created the instrument of his own demise.
....So say we all!!
Did Liz literally just try to save the criminal of this episode? Linus should've just shot her immediately.
for me this is the second worst episode so far. let me give you some spoilers: a centuries old (plural) virus dug up and weaponized by a radical environmelast. a special species of rat that is only sold by one company, and luckily there is only one client who can be a suspect... for Aram it only takes minutes to solve ANY case. I hated CSI, and I hate the CSI inspired dramaturg of this show. I only binge it because of.Spader and thus misterious hook, the relationship between liz and red. my guilty pleasure.
Really disappointed.
A disease dug up and used now?
Also, if it's so dangerous when and how did the vaccine was found/created so easily? When did they have the time to create it?
Hey, it's Mr. Homn! And he still doesn't really get to speak. (Carel Struycken is a very distinctive man, both in stature and in face. He's also known for playing Lurch in the three Addams Family films, and the Giant in Twin Peaks.)
"A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer." — Bruce Lee
To be fair, I would have disobeyed the Captain's orders for Tal too...
Chakotay: I need to go on a vision quest.
Me: -turns off episode-
I hate the way that whenever Voyager needs to show weird aliens trying to communicate, they just copy DS9's Prophet visions.
It was nice that the actor playing Chakotay's grandfather was the same actor from the TNG episode 'Journey's End'.
Much better. This manages to be weird and quirky without being silly, and successfully celebrates the best traditions of classic Star Trek. The episode scored a winner by getting Jason Alexander to play Kurros. He walks the line between friendly and extremely creepy and makes a very memorable villain who, in many ways, you want to like.
It's another strong episode for Seven, who still is getting a lot of episodes devoted to her (the producers clearly wanted to make her the face of the show, if not the entire franchise at this time). She finally feels like a natural part of the crew, willing to help them out and trust them. She's also able to say no when she feels like it, a luxury not afforded to the rest of the crew who have to follow the chain of command. In this case, it makes sense. I can imagine Harry or Chakotay would have willingly given themselves to the Think Tank when first asked if it meant saving Voyager given the sense of duty that's been hammered into them; Seven doesn't want to and has no qualms about saying it.
While I will say the episode was mostly predictable, with a "twist" you see coming fairly early on, it was a very fun watch made better by the performances and interesting character writing.
The Think Tank themselves are a villain finally worthy of the screen time, after an endless stream of meaningless aliens that I've mostly forgotten. We do unfortunately get another bland antagonist species here, too, with the Hazari. Ah well, at least they don't just look human like so many Delta Quadrant races.
The overall episode was good, until the last 5 minutes when apparently a new incompetent writer took over...
Just kill the zombie! It was obvious B'Elanna couldn't talk him down, but now was the time she decided to try diplomacy?
And they didn't even get the freighter into the star, so it was all for naught. The magnetic field of the corona isn't going to contain an explosion that would affect an volume 3 lightyears across. It would have had to stay together until it was inside the star, maybe...
Callum's progress in magic and Soren's recovery are way too easy. Claudia is the only one with an interesting character arc honestly.
TL;DR Awkwardly executed, but with a truly Trekkian and compelling ethical dilemma. The Seven and Neelix scene near the end is worth the price of admission for subtly showing a socially and philosophically matured Seven.
Voyager's weak point has always been not knowing what to do with most of its main crew. Tom and Harry are boring and handled unnaturally, and the beginning of this episode is no exception. Then, suddenly... DRAMA, YELLING. Unsurprisingly, I was not invested in the stakes or the actions. BUT.
But, there is a compelling ethical question at the heart of the episode, and it's as Star Trek as you can get. There's also a great Seven scene when she's talking to Neelix. It's still not handled as well as later TNG episodes or DS9 episodes, but it was a great character moment that was a long time cooking, and came out naturally, and was profound, and fittingly uttered with a tempered explanatory tone by Seven in an Evo-Devo perspective, which suited her perfectly.
The problem with the story's delivery was that it was clear where it was going, and factually apparent what did not happen, and clearly suggestive what was going on, and I was the one yelling at the TV by the last 8 minutes when they finally had Janeway realize what was going on.
However, the final scene where she decides what they should do about it was handled about as well as can be expected with Voyager, and I actually agreed with this version of Janeway, which is a lot closer to what kind of ethical steerswoman she should have been throughout the show to this point.
The whole episode seems to be written to convince Dwayne Johnson to make a (very) brief appearance. And it worked as, according to imdb, this episode had the highest ratings of the season.
Which I find rather sad because people were probably tuning in to see The Rock and not Star Trek. And since neither his role nor the story itself is memorable you can ignore this one. It's also quite easy to recognize when they used the stunt-double for Jeri and when it's her.
