What a tragic story Davey Sacatino's is. And in a way, Tony's story is tragic here too. Hell, so is Meadow's and Davey's son Eric's. Davey's a guy who clearly has a problem, and while Tony's right -- he makes his own choices and they're dumb ones and he has no one to blame but himself, but Tony lets him pursue those urges. Even though Tony wants to keep Davey's iron out of the fire, even though he tries to dissuade him, once the die is cast, he reluctantly does his job. And he realizes how it affects his daughter just a little, even if it angers him.
And he's right when he yells at her. Not to yell, but the point that he makes. Everything Meadow has comes from her father's business. It may not be as unmediated or clear as her friend's car, but everything she has is tainted in the same way. It's no fault of hers, but she seems hurt by the realization in the same way that Eric is frustrated by it. Tony seems frustrated by it too. A lot of the first season seemed to deal with Tony having to harmonize his family life and his work life, and against his almost best efforts, here they are colliding again.
When Tony is reflecting with his crew that he remembers his dad and Uncle Junior running the game when they were kids, there's a sense that it was supposed to be something more than this. This is supposed to be an achievement for Tony, and instead it just causes another headache and makes him have to do something he didn't want to do. Like the Happy Wanderer, Tony should be carefree now that he's at the top of the game. But the Executive Game is a microcasm - it's the trophy he wanted, but it doesn't make him happy.
An amazingly well constructed episode that deals with alternate timelines but manages to be a wonderful character piece. The return of Denise Crosby as Tasha is central to this, and I wish I could experience the original shock of seeing her that must have occurred back in 1990.
The episode manages to bring meaning to her senseless season 1 death, and her scenes with both Guinan and Picard are very layered and powerful. Additionally, the episode has a vividly different look from standard TNG; dramatic lighting and longer focal depth really stand out, giving the episode its own identity. I get a small thrill with the return of the original-era movie uniforms and even set design.
It's also nice the way that the main cast change their performances in only subtle ways. Mainly we see that Picard and Riker have a harder edge, they seem more battle weary and forceful in their decisions. But the old captain is still in there as we see in his discussions with Guinan. This is yet another demonstration of what an important addition Whoopi Goldberg was to the cast.
As for minor criticism, I find the last 5 minutes of the episode a little dull. The battle with the Klingons just isn't particularly exciting. It's also convenient that the Enterprise-C crew were so willing to go back to their time without much argument.
A classic episode, doing something very different from what we usually get. Data is such a great creation both on the page and as brought to life by Brent Spiner, that it's almost impossible to not be fascinated whenever he's on screen. This episode is funny and light hearted while also engaging from start to finish.
Several things are introduced to the franchise here, including the hairdresser on board the Enterprise and Data's cat Spot. We also meet Keiko for the first time; I've been surprised to read that many fans didn't really like her, as I always found her an enjoyable character. O'Brien is getting more and more to do as the show goes on, establishing him as a strong character in himself.
Gates McFadden gets to show off her skills in the wonderful dancing scenes which are fun to watch. The subplot concerning the Vulcan ambassador and the Romulans is a bit weird, especially its surprise ending. I'm not sure it was integrated into the episode all that well.
The daywatch/nightwatch schedule on the bridge is a new one. It seems a bit odd because it suggests that the senior staff would rarely all be on the bridge at the same time, but every episode up until this point tells us otherwise. It's also convenient that all matters of importance happen during the ships "day time".
The success of this episode relies almost entirely on the perfect casting of Famke Janssen as Kamala. Star Trek doesn't have a great history of guest stars, but it's so clear from this episode that she's above the usual guest talent and was destined for a big acting career. True to her character, she manages to create excellent chemistry with everyone she interacts with.
It's also a strong episode due to how much it exposes of Captain Picard. It's clear that he always keeps a tight reign on his own personal feelings and those walls come down here. I particularly loved the casual scenes with Beverley, and I'd wish we'd seen more like that through the series.
For all that, there's no denying it's a fairly offensive story in regards to women. It also assumes that all men are attracted to Kamala, forgetting that some people have different sexuality, and doesn't even attempt to show how she interacts with other women.
The Ferengi are both fun (another Max Grodenchik performance) and it's amusing to see a pre-X-Men Stewart and Janssen together, especially as she introduces herself as a "mutant".
I had to laugh at Riker resisting the come-on from Kamala. As he leaves he says, "I'll be on the holodeck" ... is that the Star Trek equivalent of, "I'll be in my bunk?"
Quite possibly the only time TNG managed successfully to pull of a romantic episode. This is a gorgeous and emotional exploration of Picard's spirit, helped all the more by the focus on music as a way to another person's heart. The biggest issue for me is just how much Nella Daren resembles Beverley Crusher; she's literally like a body double or stand in for her, and given Picard's series-long attraction to the doctor this comes across a a bit amusing.
It's great that the story references events of 'The Inner Light' (an episode I criticised for never having any impact on the episodes that follow; this one proves me at least somewhat wrong), but it's also worth noting that something very similar happens here. Picard finds love and seemingly a new way of feeling comfortable with himself, but it's all over by the end of the episode and any effect it may have had on his character is forgotten from here on. It's such a shame that TNG couldn't have plot threads running through episodes.
It's also one of the very few episodes in which music was allowed to be more than bland background noise (I'll never understand why Trek was only ever allowed to use the musical equivalent of a beige carpet). There's some really beautiful pieces here, both played by characters and as a part of the soundtrack. The background story involving the storm and the rescue attempts don't feel very compelling for much of the running time, but it does enable the episode to build up to a tense ending. The good chemistry between the actors was also essential in this working (see the many Troi romance episodes in which there never is any).
What I have to commend this episode for is the depiction of real emotion. It captures the joy of playing music with another person (I know this, I do it for a living) and also heartbreak. The shot of Picard sitting alone in his quarters, coming to terms with the fact that Nella may be gone is really, really upsetting.
Someone is trying to start a war and it isn't Mars. Is it just the Belt? Or is someone on earth vying for control of it all?
Avarsarala is my favorite so far. Even while using her friend to get around the rules, she is not made out to be cold hearted, but rather determined and with strong convictions. These characteristics are usually placed with men, but it's so refreshing to see a clearly morally gray female character that isn't automatically demonized. Here we see her use her friend and ambassador to confirm if Mars is behind the attack, which ultimate leads to him being collateral damage in her search for evidence against the Red Planet. What she does find instead is that Mars isn't at fault. But the ambadassor does give us insight into her: she's a smart, cunning and bold woman who always gets what she wants and usually she wants to "win", even if that means she has to make up her own rules. (Note: out of all the cast so far, she is by far my fav. So much under the surface that I want to see more. Is she a good? a bad? or forever in the vastness of the gray?)
After beeing arrested by the Mars Federation, our small crew from the water carrier/Canterbury is placed under interrigation and everyone's secrets come out (Former Mars Military, a Possible OPA Member, and a privilged Earther). This crew is much more than they seem. No one really knows anyone and they might just turn on each other as they feel the flames of power. The crew survived space, but can they survive each other?
Loved the interrogation scenes. These remind me of what care the showrunner/directors take in showing us the differences in physiology between the three groups. Here we see the enhaced/altered abilities of the Mars people as the interrogator has enhanced vision, camera focusing on his eyes as he interrogates and notices nuances or small movements in the prisoners, almost as a lie detector. They use this to create the tension in the interrogation, having the viewer watch him what the prisoner, looking to see if he catches a lie or false info, revealing a possible culprit.
Back on Ceres things are getting really interesting. The shipment of water is VERY LATE, due to the destroyed Canterbury, which has everyone on high alert, tensions palpable. With Holden's "Mars Attacked Us" message, the OPA is ready to revolt and now they have a martyr for their cause.
Miller has finally connected Mao's disapperance to the Scopuli, and to the destroyed water carrier, but he has also connected her to the OPA, but they are dangerous territory.
The Martians do give us another piece of the puzzle. Now we have Phoebe research station, a restricted station. What was going on on Phoebe that had the Martians so interested in what the Canterbury crew could know?
The pace of the show is still slow. Revealing small pieces of the puzzle, just like a book. Feels more like a mini series than traditional series.
Solid all around. Rate the ep a 7.5.
As hell breaks loose on Eros, the Rocinante crew figure out something is not right. Miller and Holden find an infected group of Belters as they are dosed with lethal amount of radiation. Enough to assure their deaths. Their only salvation is getting to the Rocinante for some radiation treatment, that's if they can make it through a station that neither of them know, where Corporation people are at every turn making sure nobody makes it out alive.
It's interesting that Miller and Holden are paired up, the realist who has to fight at every turn, knowing that the system is against them, and the ever hopeful, who feels like all can be saved if only you try hard enough.... both men always finding trouble wherever they go.
The rest of the misfit crew is working their way through the tunnels trying to find a way to the ship, trying to save themselves and as many people they can convince that salvation is with them.
Again, Chrisjen is my favorite. She knows she is playing a chess game and she knows that manipulation is her only salvation, the only way to get at the truth when those in power are lying/hiding.
Finally Holden and Miller make it to the ship, just in time to get radiation treatment. And the Rocinante blast off, leaving the ProtoMolecule infested Eros Station, They live to fight another day.
The final scene is the UN spy being devoured by the almost sentient PM, as we see it has taken over the whole station. What is it? Why did Mao Corporation create it? What was the point in using Eros as a lab? Where will the Rocinante find refuge? Can Chrisjen win the politics game to find the truth? So many questions answered, so many more raised.
Intense, thrilling, and immensely satisfying. This episode is a payoff to so many things that have been building, and lets rip by officially kicking off the Dominion War. Time is given to each main character as plans are set in motion, and there's a sense of inevitability throughout the whole thing - although, the whole way through we expect the crew to be able to defend the station; instead, they evacuate it and it ends up in Dominion/Cardassian control. A bold move.
There's time for some lighter stuff admidst everything. Rom and Leeta's wedding is short and cute, as well as the Rom/Quark brotherly love which fights its way to the surface. I'm also glad that Kira and Odo finally address the tension between them which begun back in 'Children of Time'. There's further romance in the air when Dax agrees to marry Worf and manages to take him by surprise, which is a rare sight by itself.
I also particular love Garak's view that shooting somebody in the back is "the safest way". He also has a quite magnificent talk with Ziyal.
The episode really revolves around Captain Sisko, though. He's a rock here, making firm decisions and planning things out while recognising that it's a lost battle. Speaking of the battle, it's a glorious space fight that ticks all the boxes and feels pretty epic. It allow us to also see the already broken dynamic between Cardassia and the Dominion as Dukat and Damar clash with Weyoun over their desire to subjugate Bajor again.
The mines seem like a good idea, but the method of implementation felt flawed to me. Surely there were other ships to help out?
But anyway, my favourite moment of the episode comes from Kira as she officially protests the Federations unwillingness to turn the station over to the Dominion, then reports for duty. The planned sabotage towards the end is also a fantastic twist. I know what's coming but I can't wait to watch it all again. I'm going to have to wait a little bit, though, because I'm reading Trek books alongside my rewatch and I have a couple of Dominion War novels to get through which fill in some events between this and the next season.
Suffice to say, there's a lot packed into this one, so it's interesting that it doesn't move at a breakneck pace and spends a fair bit of time on character moments. That's in stark contrast to what Star Trek: Discovery is doing, and I definitely prefer DS9's approach
[7.8/10] A very fun episode that has the sort of solipsism and insane twists that are endemic to The Gang and lead to plenty of comedy. I particularly appreciated the fact that, as Dennis predicted, Dee (and by extension Mac) are legitimately in a Dinner for Schmucks/Pig Party situation, where Trevor Taft is in a competition with his frat brothers to find the biggest loser, but in the end, it’s Charlie who’s pulling a Dangerous Liaisons/Cruel Intentions on Ruby Taft and not the other way around.
Maybe it’s just me speaking as someone who naively thought Cruel Intentions was sexy and brilliant when I was 14, but Charlie using (I think) exact quotes from that movie got a luagh out of me. And the way he seemed to get over The Waitress, move on to Ruby, and then just when you think his heart’s going to get broken, he’s not only the same old Waitress-obsessed guy he always was, but he even semi-successfully pulls off this insane scheme! It’s a superb comic reversal.
The other half of the episode is more run-of-the-mill IASIP insanity, with Dee doing a ridiculous striptease, Mac continuing his propensity to interrupt Reynolds family relations and being really into wrestling, Dennis taking his physical appearance so seriously that a comment about him being pale sends him to the tanning salon, and Frank sneaking into the Waitress’s apartment to put rat poison in her shampoo. It’s the sort of deranged antics that the show regularly wrings comedy out of.
Overall, a very nice episode that plays on things we already know about the characters, but doesn’t just regurgitate past hits. Breath of fresh air.
One thing I can say about this, is that when DS9 decides to do something strange then it fully commits to it. This episode is one that almost fails but pulls through due to its charm and the rich history of the characters and relationships on screen. The pairing of Kira and Odo is one that I've read a lot of viewers discontent with, but I actually found it to work despite the somewhat manufactured nature of it.
A lot of the odds are stacked against this one. We are introduced to Vic Fontaine who I have to admit is a character that I never quite clicked with, but he somehow manages to not grate too badly with me (once I get past his annoying use of dialogue). The 1960s swing music is a a bit too much - and we have to sit through complete songs - but the whole setting somehow seems to nestle comfortably into the show. I'll feel similarly annoyed when he makes future appearances, but I'll also warm to him as the episodes continue.
It's also a far more natural holodeck environment than anything Voyager has done by this point in time. I can understand why the crew would come here to relax.
I remember watching this episode when it first aired and feeling a bit sideswiped by the whole thing. I think that's just because I wasn't expecting it, and I've found myself warming more to it with subsequent rewatches. It's due to the journey we've been on with both Odo and Kira that I feel very invested in what happens between them, but the show could have done a bit more to build up to this naturally.
The dinner between Kira and Odo is genuinely tense and exciting stuff due to the way it's arranged, with Odo not realising he's speaking with the real Kira. We as an audience are waiting for everything to crash and burn in ruins, but simultaneously delighting in seeing Odo really doing well and wanting it to work out. The final moments between them on the promenade manage to be both silly and gorgeous, and I can't help smiling. I'm happy they finally get together.
There is a truly awkward moment during the dinner scene where Vic randomly begins singing and is just staring at Kira and Odo. It's weird and creepy.
A much stronger follow up to 'The Siege of AR-558'. This puts Nog front-and-centre, which doesn't happen often, and deals with his recovery from losing his leg. Aron Eisenberg gets to show that he's a better actor than most of us expect and puts in a very strong performance that requires a lot of him. The episode also performs the miracle of making Vic Fontaine an integral part, and I actually found myself really liking him for the first time.
It's a downbeat episode for the majority of the running time. Nog becomes kind of exasperating to watch, and it's easy to understand why Jake loses his temper with him. It all feels very realistic, though - not that I have any experience of losing a limb or being around someone who has. The low mood all gives way to quite a gorgeous and positive ending, though, so it's worth it. It's impressive that the two main characters in this episode, Nog and Vic, are just secondary characters who don't even have their names in the opening titles. There is so many depth and good writing to all involved in this show that we can have episodes like this and it just works.
I also love the background stuff that happens, such as the worry shown by Rom and Leeta (and even Quark!). The sense of their family really shines through. I also love Bashir's exasperation when his holosuite programs are belittled.
If I have any complaint, it's the overuse of damn swing-jazz lounge music. I just cannot get behind it's inclusion in the show, and the fact that every character who comes into contact with it seems to fall in love with it just bewilders me.
[8.4/10] Far and away my favorite of the season so far. Just the premise of Mr. Deadly, a polite, sentient doomsday device that wants nothing more than to explode, is hilarious. Matt Berry does a great job giving the character a dry affect, and his constant efforts to get people to say the phrase “please detonate” is great. Even better are Lana’s efforts to convince him that life is worth living, because (1.) he’s a sentient creature who deserves the joys of life (2.) that way he won’t explode and kill millions of people and (3.) to prove Archer wrong.
As I’ve said in prior write-ups, we’ve gotten a lot of good Lana/Archer material in this one, and Archer criticizing her need to fix things as the cause of their break-up, while she turns it around and blames it on his constant extramarital schtupping, is more digging into the pair’s relationship, past and present.
It’s also an episode with great setups and payoffs galore. Lana’s quest to prove that life is worthwhile to Mr. Deadly culminates in her taking a bullet for him, which is a nice place to build to after butterflies and whiskey. All of Krieger’s demented Q-style gadgets come into play in fun ways. And Archer’s fear of black holes comes back a cool, character-worthy fashion as well.
Plus the stuff on the margins is great too. It’s nice to have Thomas Lennon back as Rudy (this time in steel-nosed, Tycho Brahe-esque bounty hunter form). The gags about Mallory trying to sell Mr. Deadly on the black market are fun (and Pam and Krieger’s mix tape cracked me the hell up). Cheryl’s death wish/sexual fixation on dying went to the usual insane but amusing places. And Pam’s pastafication/pasta vacation gags are the kind of dumb but sublty brilliant humor that I love from Archer.
There’s also the part of me that loves how this one riffs on well-worn sci-fi tropes, like doomsday devices in general, and semi-sentient defense mechanisms from long-defunct alien civilizations in particular. The original Star Trek went to that well all the time, and it’s fun to see this spoof of the idea.
Overall, this is a clever, well-written, and above all else very funny episode of the show.
Less of a "holodeck gone wrong" episode than it is a "holodeck gone weird". And I feel quite weird myself, because apparently this episode is a favourite among fans and the cast/crew. I honestly struggled to keep my attention on it.
Maybe it's because it feels like ground that's been trodden so many times before, or maybe it's because of how unimpressed I was by the Beowulf environment. Trek has done this endless times over, they just normally substitute the halls of Viking warriors for Klingons.
If anything, I felt that it highlighted how much Robert Picardo stands out among the rest of his cast mates as having a fantastic character to work with. The Doctor is fun to watch and he has some great comedy moments here. In theory, the concept of sending the Doctor onto the holodeck to do the crew's work for them would make sense, but it just raised so many questions for me about what he is. The characters, and indeed the show itself, is treating him as if he were a real person now with feelings, desires and specialities. That would suggest that holograms are capable of becoming a recognised life form and that Starfleet ships can create them (a subject done by TNG).
It's just very quaint, very safe, and an uninteresting side step for the show. I do admit, though, that Freya the Shield-maiden was pretty awesome.
Bonus points: no Neelix.
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.
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 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?
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!!
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.
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.
An episode with a really interesting premise that sort of falls flat on its face. It also helps that Kim Rhodes is pretty charismatic in the role of Lyndsay.
But the episode is all over the place. First of all we get a bizarre situation in which Lyndsay attempts to communicate with Voyager and for some reason her transmission goes to an unmanned screen in an empty room where a little girl just happens to stumble upon it by chance. Since when does communication happen like that on a ship? If Voyager is contacted then the bridge is alerted and someone (usually Harry) says, "Captain, we're receiving a transmission." This episode just decides to do whatever.
Then there's the massive issue that Lyndsay was a beloved and trusted crew member that everyone remembers fondly. Harry was even in love with her. Except... we've never met her before. She's never even been mentioned before. The episode would have had some actual impact if this had been somebody from the show's past who died. Granted, Voyager has never actively tried to introduce us to many crew members outside of the main characters, but I'm sure there was scope for this to work somehow. As it is, we get a disjointed story that it's difficult to care about.
There's also very little drama in her return or subsequent leaving. She's desperate to return to Voyager but then she just decides "nah, not for me" and leaves. Not all that compelling.
Still, the stuff with Seven and the Borg kids (they're still around!) is a little diversion.
[4.4/10] If there were two things that consistently drove me nuts about The Original Series, it was the “Kirk knows best” attitude, and the parade of disposable love interests. With the former, it didn’t matter how reasonably Spock’s points were, or how fragile the ecosystem of the community that this flaxen-haired spaceman was visiting. Kirk had his ideas, and he was going to jump in and execute them no matter what anyone else said. With the latter, to borrow a line from Community, Kirk (and plenty of other characters, to be fair), would often have passionate, instant chemistry with some random woman whom we’d never see again. Both of these problems dragged down more than a few of the 79 episodes that started this whole Trek shebang.
So it’s disheartening, to say the least, to see Enterprise repeating those mistakes. In fairness, there’s less of the “Captain is always right” thing here. I’d like to think that part of what this series is doing is showing the audience adventures from before there was a prime directive, or standard away team protocols, in order to have things come this close to going entirely pear-shaped and demonstrating why those rules were created in the first place. (Not that those rules did much to keep Kirk in line.)
That means that, while I find it annoying, I’m willing to tolerate Archer being dismissive of T’Pol’s concerns about screwing around in a pre-warp civilization if it’s a prelude to Archer running into real trouble and being a little chastened about the whole experience. But we don’t get that here. Instead, we get the old “some mysterious thing is making everyone of these mostly-human aliens sick, and we’ve got to save them” razmataz, replete with firefights in the streets and an attractive younger woman who’s paired up with the captain, and a chance for Archer to prove he was right to want to go down to the surface given how he manages to save the day.
It’s all just tiresome. Archer is kind of a supercilious dick through the whole thing, and I am increasingly skeptical of Scott Bakula’s ability to do the Kirk thing in 2001. (Hell, I’m still somewhat skeptical of Shatner’s ability to do the Kirk thing in 1966!). He’s not really convincing as a mystery solver or as a confidence man, but the show wants you to think he is, which makes his efforts to uncover the source of the illness meh at best. He’s also not great at the moral indignation thing, which is a good chunk of the episode.
It’s also just not that interesting of a mystery, and “Civilization” really belabors it. We barely get to know the native aliens before we’re introduced to the illness, mostly via exposition. It’s instantly clear that the concerned apothecary is the good guy and that the smug shopkeep is the bad guy, which takes a lot of the intrigue away. And the reveal that this is an Erin Brockovich/A Civil Action-esque story about mining runoff making people sick is a pretty boring reveal.
Ideally, the show wants to spruce up that fairly standard “Starfleet infiltrates pre-warp civilization and discovers mortal threat” template with the Archer/Riann romance, but that’s dull as dishwater, which brings things down considerably. I’m willing to give some leeway to episodic television to have single-serving romances to add a little excitement to these individual stories. But the show telegraphs the romance so heavily, hits such predictable beats, and finds absolutely no chemistry between its actors to the point that it’s a chore to get through their scenes.
Riann’s character is barely sketched beyond generic “something must be done!” And Archer’s interest in her isn’t sketched beyond him randomly kissing her when the universal translator stops working. It’s the usual “Here’s two people. We hope our focus on them will paper over the fact that we’ve done little-to-nothing to account for why they should be together” routine. That approach is particularly galling when you just know that Riann isn’t going to join them on the ship, and this is inevitably a dull, fleeting thing.
The episode is also just sloppy. Again, it’s immediately clear who the bad guys and good guys are. Archer and Riann escape the bunker where the mining is being done despite being theoretically trapped and held at gunpoint because...reasons? It’s never really made clear. They’re just suddenly out and running from the bad guy.
The one minor saving grace here is that it’s a good episode for T’Pol, who after some initial skepticism from yours truly, has settled into the Spock role nicely. Trip’s mini-freakout when she says to prepare to leave, only for her to slap him down (figuratively of course) and note that she had no intention of leaving the captain behind, is a great character moment. And while it’s a little convenient, her beaming the energy core that the bad guys were using into space, and then blasting to disable the ship, was pretty damn badass. Her lineread of “fire” when she had Reed then disable the enemy ship’s weapon systems was downright Picard-esque.
But at the end of the day, this is an Archer episode, and it’s just boring. The romance is predictable. The mystery is predictable. And the non-Enterprise part of the escape is done by fiat. I’m not one to poo poo the minor thrill of our heroes dressing like the natives and trying to learn a little more about an alien society. But in trying to give us the first such story in Starfleet history (at least chronologically in-universe), Enterprise delivers something generic at best, and eye-roll worthy at worst.
That comes down to an undercooked, underwhelming romance, and a heap of Archer ignoring everyone else’s advice because he just has a feeling about how to do and save everything. Rather than punishing our protagonist for the hubris or developing a romance worth rooting for, “Civilization” just gives the audience some reheated Kirk-esque leftovers, that were barely worth chowing down on when they came from the later (but earlier) Enterprise’s replicators.
Worth watching
Themes: first contact, Reed development, Enterprise development
Enterprise is making way for future human space exploration by deploying subspace amplifiers, which apparently draws attention from a ship that even T'Pol doesn't recognize. They don't respond at all and just go away after taking a look. They return later, causing ship wide power failure, docking their shuttle, getting all old school alien with probing incapacitated crewmen and escaping before the crew can do anything. This makes Archer realise they are ill equipped for dealing with something as alien as this and turns them around to Jupiter station so they can get their phase cannons mounted. Reed and Tucker are certain they can do it themselves but Archer is too shaken to approve their request. That doesn't stop them from giving their all to do it themselves, which is the decision that ultimately saves them as they encounter aliens one more time, where it's finally clear their intention is to capture Enterprise. Aliens themselves have a part in their own defeat as their monitoring device causes power surge that boosts power of the cannons at the expense of other systems, which is something they use to defeat aliens and once more reverse course and go further into space.
Now this is really good. We get character development with having a character in question barely in that storyline at all, which is actually brilliant way to show just how much of a private person Reed is. We get truly alien looking aliens, not just humans with a little prosthetic detail to make them different (and also some slick looking ships). This goes a long way to show us there are other warp capable species in the universe whose motives and intentions can't be understood by usual human logic. Mystery surrounding them really brings a dose of scariness that isn't that usual in ST universe, as they genuinely seem as a threat, which really brings home the point of Enterprise and its crew not really being prepared for anything galaxy throws at them. Moreover, it also gives an opportunity to show us what the crew is made of, as they work relentlessly to mount those cannons themselves. It's everything one would hope for out of a Star Trek episode.
Fun fact: we get to learn there are 81 humans, 1 denobulan and 1 vulcan onboard.
Skip
Themes: character degradation
Trip and Reed are making their way back to rendezvous point near asteroid field in shuttle, only to find what appears to be Enterprise plastered on the side of the asteroid. They immediately start to panic and argue, as one would expect from some of the best Starfleet has to offer.
In the very next scene we learn that Enterprise is just fine, transporting Tesninans to their home world after their ship was destroyed in a docking attempt, taking away part of docking bay door with it.
And approximately 3 minutes in episode that's it for the plot. We know they'll rescue them so there's no real tension so we are left with almost 40 minutes of them bickering, Reed sending endless letters and T'Pol trying to convince Archer that micro singularities exist.
Now this is absolute garbagefest. There's no real plot, almost no character development (and what there is doesn't flatter anyone), no new information, only endless stupidity, bad acting and bad dialogue.
We get such memorable scenes as Reed sealing a hole in a shuttle plating from micro black whole with mashed potatoes and Reed having fantasy about T'Pol complete with him staring at her boobs and Reed and Trip overacting during drinking scene. Ok, we get to know that Reed is a melancholic ladies man, something we really didn't need to know.
And it's funny that even though Archer appears for a minute, they still manage to make his character even more unlikable. As if he didn't come across as ignorant enough, he literally laughs off the idea of micro singularities. Oh stupid vulcans and their scientific theories, what do they know, right?
Also, it occurred to me that this was supposed to be a comedy episode. If so, its failure is even bigger. They very effectively degraded 3 characters and gained absolutely nothing in the process. And for this to come just after Shadows of P'jem, one of the best episodes of the season that had so much going on!
And only thing left to think about: shuttle was supposed to move away from Enterprise at least 20000km so they can adjust targeting. If we give it a benefit of a doubt that there is some reason why they were supposed to move away, why wouldn't Enterprise just hop near the shuttle, warn them they had an accident and that they'll return in 3 days (or you know, cancel the shuttlepod mission). It would take them a split second to cover that distance. Yep, this episode literally shouldn't have happened.
[6.7/10] I hate to complain about Star Trek being formulaic. There’s certain beats the franchise likes to hit or tropes it likes to deploy, but that’s part of the charm. The series has never been a procedural exactly, but even with the vast reaches of space at their disposal, there’s certain types of stories that are familiar, but pleasantly so. Star Trek has always had a certain sensibility, with repeated elements particularly recognizable for fans who’ve been following it for decades, that make the execution of the idea more important than how fresh or well-worn it may be.
But “Oasis” feels like paint-by-numbers Star Trek to me. It is not bad by any stretch of the imagination. It is a sturdy, tidily-constructed episode that parcels out its mysteries and reveals nicely, features from able performances, and bakes in a little of that moral thought experiment material that usually elevates the franchise. It’s all just very familiar, and never transcends being “pretty good” instead of “great”, without anything that could truly surprise or pull the rug out from under a longtime viewer.
The episode starts with a dinner engagement between the Enterprise’s main trio and Harry Mudd-esque alien who tells them of a ship containing precious materials in exchange for some bags of coffee. But he warns them -- it’s haunted! It’s a cute way to start the episode that diverts from the usual “Captain, we’re getting a strange reading from that sector” kick-off that so many installments begin with. Granted, there is a strange reading here -- the fact that scanners reveal no life signs on the ship, but the away team discovers any entire crew of humanoids living in secret there -- but it’s at least a fun way to dive into that material.
From there, “Oasis” plays into the usual mystery angle. Once the Enterprise crew discovers the ship’s secret inhabitants, we learn the story that they were attacked by some aliens and standed, putting up a dampening field in case the aggressors returned and building a new life on the ship after it was too damaged to make the flight home or even contact help. Naturally, Archer and company want to do everything they can to help these people, which mostly means fixing their computer systems and upgrading some others, while the locals are surprisingly resistant to notions that the Enterprise would help them make the year’s journey back to their home planet.
All of this material is perfectly fine, in the usual “local community has a jam, and the spacemen try to help them out of it” sort of way. But things quickly proceed into the usual “this seemingly normal group has a dark secret” rigamarole. Reed and others discover that the ship has been stranded for much longer than its residents admitted, and the ship itself shows no sign of being attacked. When they take in an escape pod with a dead body in it, it becomes doubly fishy. Again, there’s nothing wrong with any of this. It’s just the standard beats for Trek, where you discovery some new group, things seem fine if a little odd, then the oddness starts escalating, until some terrible secret is revealed that forces the crew into a difficult moral choice.
I have nothing against that structure, but without an intriguing idea or a crackerjack performance or some really sharp writing, it becomes replacement-level Star Trek, without much objectionable but also not much to recommend it either.
The two things Enterprise does to try to spice up the proceedings are also familiar ones. The first is that Trip falls in love with one of the locals, Lyana, with a dynamic that feels strikingly like Pike’s and Vina’s in “The Menagerie” from The Original Series. Their chemistry is cute (with a particularly amusing exchange about rocky road ice cream), and T’Pol’s references to the last time Trip got involved with an engineer on another ship are well-taken, but there’s not much novel to it. It’s meant to give the Enterprise crew, and the audience, a more personal stake in what happens to these stranded humanoids, but if you have romantic entanglements on a nigh-weekly basis that are quickly forgotten, both on this show and Star Trek in general, it’s hard to get too invested in the relationship without some extra spark.
Some of that spark is supposed to come from Rene Auberjonois (who played Odo on Deep Space 9) guest-starring as Lyana’s father (getting the “And” credit to boot!), who is more than meets the eye. After the locals try to take T’Pol and Trip hostage to make the repairs, Lyana intervenes, pulling some circuits in the control room and making almost all of her compatriots disappear. Her father then confesses that they’re all holograms he created after their ship crashed, meant to give his daughter some companions and a normal life to grow up with, and assuage his guilt for being part of the reason the ship crashed after he left his post to try to rescue her.
(As an aside, it’s fun for fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender to see Auberjonois playing a character who lives in an isolated community where he engineers all kinds of wild inventions in order to give his child a better life.)
As reveals go, it’s not bad. There’s a personal reason behind the exposition and explanation, and Auberjonois gets a good monologue about being afraid of change but pushing past it for the good of his daughter. It all just never really rises above that. It leads to the Enterprise crew helping make the ship fly again, so that Lyana can see the world, and she and Trip have a sweet little goodbye. It’s a pat, but serviceable ending, that doesn't really challenge the characters or the viewers. It’s satisfying enough, but not much more than that.
Friends who watched the series in real time have told me that Enterprise was, at least in part, an effort to expand the reach and popularity of the franchise beyond the die-hards. If you’re new to Star Trek, and chose to start with Enterprise for some reason, maybe there would be more novelty to all of this. And it’s probably unfair to judge these episodes from the perspective of someone who’s seen these tropes and story beats deployed across decades of shows. But alas, it’s the only perspective I have to give. From that vantage point “Oasis” is an ably-done version of several things Star Trek has done and done better elsewhere, which never rankles, but never soars either.
I think this episode suffered from trying to include too many subplots. In the end none of the stories got any real closure.
Perhaps it was intentional that all of the plot lines were so superficial, but I don't have to like it.
What does it say about this episode that its only real effect was to make me like Hoshi even more? (For that matter, what does it say about me?) None of these little vignettes had any real character insight to offer. We already knew that Trip and Reed are perhaps a bit incautious when it comes to booze and women. (I'll leave aside the contradictions I see with their previously established backstories.) We already knew that Archer is inclined to distrust anyone who talks too much about the Suliban. We also already knew that Hoshi is amazing at learning languages—it's literally the reason Archer wanted her on his ship in the first place. (Doesn't make it any less interesting to "see" the character "learn" new languages.) I guess we didn't know that Phlox gets silly when he's woken up mid-hibernation, but that felt more like a shoehorned-in comic relief plot than anything.
To sum up: Hoshi is adorable. Phlox gets a chance to be supremely silly, though it doesn't really work with the tone of the show for me. Trip and Malcolm don't really have any presence, just a one-off gag (of sorts) scene that just gets left. Archer meets a mysterious woman who can only be a hint at things to come. (For that reason, his is the most fulfilling subplot—though it is fulfilling only in that it promises more intrigue next season and beyond.)
If the neutronic storm front is "traveling at high warp", how can Archer see it out his window? It should have already engulfed the ship by the time its reflected light reaches their position. (I accept that we, the viewers, can see it, for dramatic reasons…reluctantly.)
With the main power grid shut down, how can they polarize the hull plating? Sure, they have backup power systems that can keep stuff like life support running, but wouldn't polarizing the entire hull take an awful lot of power?
The galley has an awful lot of stuff sitting around that would have fallen to the deck by then, most likely, from all the turbulence. And if the radiation is lethal to a human after three minutes of exposure, are the foodstuffs they left behind even going to be edible after spending over a week bathed in it? I guess it depends on whether the radiation is absorbed and held by organic matter. (At any rate, the real reason food was left in the galley was probably so they could explode lettuce with weapons fire in a later scene. And things hadn't fallen to the deck yet because they needed stuff to fall due to turbulence during the firefight. Dramatic necessity, blah blah.)
My technical nitpicking aside, this was a fairly solid episode from a story standpoint. It was certainly much better than "Precious Cargo". About the only thing I really have to call out is Archer's slightly hokey handling of aliens appearing out of the blue, demanding to come aboard for shelter from a storm Enterprise hadn't even detected yet. (I suppose I should also call out Enterprise's failure to detect the storm on its own sooner. For a ship with supposedly decent long-range scanning capability, that was a fair flub.)
[4.1/10] I am the king of complaining about Star Trek episodes where some Federation ship barges in and just completely upends somebody else’s society. If I had a nickel for every time Captain Kirk strolled onto some alien planet and, over the advice of Spock, decided that their way of life was wrong and he knew better, I could afford to build my own stentorian-voiced authoritarian supercomputer. There’s a lack of nuance and practicality that always drove me nuts in that, and it’s a strain of arrogant righteousness that ran from the 1960s series to the latest one.
But holy hell, “Cogentior” ends with Archer chewing Trip out for teaching a slave to read and blaming him for the slave’s suicide. I just....I don’t know what to do with that.
Let’s go back to the basics of the situation. The Enterprise is studying some megastar and runs into a more advanced species. They have fancier ships and better equipment and, for once, they’re friendly rather than hostile! They too are explorers, hoping to meet new species and learn more about the galaxy. After so much rough and tumble diplomacy, Archer and company meet some aliens who are excited to see them, ready to teach them about their technology, and seem to share the same values.
That alone is kind of refreshing. Granted, friendly aliens don’t usually make for great drama, which is probably why Star Trek tends to go more for the aggressive/greedy/paranoid types, but still. There’s something kind of adorable about Archer and the alien captain trading quotes about Shakespeare (a Trek tradition), and having their little mutual admiration society.
The catch to all of this is that Trip discovers the species’ titular “cogenitor.” You see, the Vissians have a third gender, who expectant couples take with them when they decide they want to have a baby. The episode plays things a little coy when Trip finds the setup a bit weird and has a certain purtianical curiosity about the whole thing. At first, it feels like an extension of the subplot from “Stigma”, where he’s just a little uncomfortable, or even close-minded, about other species’ cultural practices.
But then the episode takes a startling right left turn, when Trip discovers that the Vissians’ cogenitors are basically chattel. He follows on his shock and curiosity and uncovers the fact that neurologically, the congenitors are exactly the same as the other Vissians, despite the fact that they’re treated like will-less property. He is aghast, and aims to teach the nameless congenitor on board how to read and instill in it the idea that it could have freedom and self-direction and the capabilities to be something more that need not be penned in by the restrictions of the Vissians’ society.
That actually sets up a really interesting dilemma and bit of social commentary. Here you have one of the most kind, altruistic, advanced, and seemingly enlightened species that humanity has ever met. They have a lot to teach Archer and his crew, and it seems like the beginning of a long, fruitful, mutually beneficial relationship between the two peoples. What happens when you realize that your new best friends are slavers? What do you do when the nicest people in the galaxy, who’ve been exploring the galaxy for 1,000 years, turn out to casually treat sentient beings like pieces of property?
There is a push and pull between notions of moral relativism and practicality versus the founding values of Starfleet and respect for sentient beings’ human rights that is a worthwhile and engaging topic to plumb the depths of. It’s the sort of conundrum we rarely see, and it’s especially salient at a time when the Federation doesn't even exist yet, and humanity is the new kid on the block that needs all the help it can get rather than the intergalactic equivalent of a global superpower.
But for some godforsaken reason, Enterprise elides all of that, and basically comes down almost wholesale on the side of “it’s their culture, and if they want to have slaves, it’s none of our business, and shame on you for interfering!”
It is mindboggling. After forty years, this is where Star Trek draws the line? This is where the franchise finally takes its whole “noninterference” thing seriously? After dozens, maybe hundreds of episodes where the crew of Federation ship decides that their morality and ethics supersedes those of the other cultures they encounter, the hill that Trek is willing to die on is “so what if this species has fully sentient, socially subjugated, baby-making slaves? It’s none of our business!” What the bloody hell!
It doesn't help that, like “Stigma”, this episode breaks up its “Very Special Episode” seriousness with broad, inessential subplot. Chief among these is Reed flirting with one of the Vissians. It’s a pointless but cute bit of cultural exchange, and in another episode, I think I’d like it. It’s the sort of slice of life bit of Trek that we don’t get enough of. But here, it just feels out of place.
The same goes for Archer and the Vissian captain’s adventure exploring the megastar. Being the most charitable, you could argue that these scenes are necessary to establish the bond that Archer is forming with the Vissians, which makes him loathe to let anything disrupt the relationship. But really, it feels like a chance for the show to show off some mid-2000s CGI firestorm effects, which are fine for their time, but pretty unavailing when you’re dealing with a choppily-edited story of Trip trying to free a slave in the main story of the episode.
Naturally, when Archer gets back from his sojourn and learns what Trip’s done from the Vissians, there’s hell to pay. The episode pays lip service to Archer seriously considering the Cogenitor’s seeking asylum, but devolves into even more stultifying Archer speeches and Vissian recriminations about not judging other cultures. So in the end, Archer agrees to return the congenitor back to the Vissians.
That alone would be a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion, albeit probably a realistic one. But what happens next takes the cake. The Enterprise gets word that the congenitor, having been consigned to a life of repression and servitude, takes its own life after having been shown the greater possibilities it will never experience by Trip. Archer reams out his chief engineer over this, laying the death at Trip’s feet and tearing him a new one for being reckless, without any consideration for the fact that, you know, this is a sentient being who was in bondage that Trip was trying to help.
What kills me is that you could keep the major beats of this story and still make it work. All it would take is Archer being genuinely conflicted, genuinely understanding of why Trip did what he did, for someone other than Trip to acknowledge the utter horribleness of what the Vissians are doing to these people, however nice they may seem otherwise.
If there were some bit of realpolitik going on, of Archer or T’Pol or somebody else saying, “You are right. This is terrible. But being absolute novices in deep space and humanity’s only representatives means that sometimes we have to make hard choices about what we tolerate in the name of not making enemies when we need friends,” then this would still be a hard episode to watch, but it would be bearable and even comprehensible.
Instead, the message of the episode seems to be “Trip was dead wrong for teaching that slave how to read and that it deserves freedom, and the congenitor’s blood is on his hand.” That is a lesson so far removed from the enlightened, compassionate ethos of Star Trek that it feels like an insult. At its best, the franchises explores the moral gray areas of where personal ethics meet cross-cultural exchange, and the fraught sore spots that arise when those two things clash. But an episode that aims to do the same, and yet lands on a message of “how dare you mess with those aliens’ practice of slavery!” is utterly antithetical to the nuance and the values that have sustained Star Trek for so many years.
The commencement speech Archer is reading on the monitor when Hoshi notifies him of the Tarkalean ship's distress call is a great touch. If you pause the blu-ray, you can actually read it (gotta love HD Star Trek). As I suspected, Archer confirms that they're Zefram Cochrane's words in a later scene. As much as Enterprise loves to mess with the existing continuity of the Trek universe, this episode is a great example of what it can do when it builds upon, instead of contradicts, the established events. The "message to the 24th century" is the only really trite part of this episode; everything else is extremely well done and fits so perfectly with the Borg stories we got to watch in the latter half of Voyager, it's hard to truly find fault with this episode.
What does bug me a bit is the seemingly automatic use of the established terms for things like "nanoprobes", "tubules", etc. Phlox is the one who introduces all of these Borg-related terms, which seems suspicious because he does so before becoming "infected" himself. It's been rather a long time since I saw First Contact, so perhaps those terms came up in Cochrane's retracted statements about the events surrounding his first warp flight and the influence of these cybernetic beings from the future?
It's much harder to excuse the fact that the security team's phase pistols cease working on the Borg drones who are trying to take over Enterprise well before the rifles Reed and Archer took over to the assimilated transport stop being effective. The same modifications were made to both weapon types, and the drones are part of the same local hive consciousness, so they should adapt to the weapons fire at the same time. (Yes, I was an avid reader of The Nitpicker's Guide when I last went through TNG.)
As expected, this finale ended up being slightly underwhelming. Honestly, this whole season has been somewhat underwhelming. But that's beside the point right now. As always, though, there were moments that I liked in this episode, moments that weren't underwhelming, so to speak. The episode itself, on the other hand, was essentially like all the other episodes of the season; plotlines and plot progression that take a few steps forward and then take more steps backward and stay there, slow (and not in a well-done way, in my opinion), and ultimately, probably easily forgettable; with, of course, moments that weren't or were more memorable.
Seemingly, The Boys are disbanded. M.M. has returned to his family; something that I think he brought up in the premiere, and some other times throughout the season, as well. Frenchie and Kimiko are growing closer and seem to be off on their own adventure. Billy seemed to decline Grace's offer at the end of the episode; well, he didn't answer. And Hughie wants a break from having guts all over him, thinks he doesn't fit in with The Boys and never has, and wants to stand on his own two feet for once, and now wants to do things the right way, in a way that seemingly indicates that it won't result in having guts all over him.
Of course, this seeming-to-be disbandment of The Boys isn't going to last. And I think I know what's going to bring everyone back together, minus Hughie; but maybe he'll come back, too, due to something else. I was expecting Grace to die in this finale. I remember that there was a flashback in the comics of The Boys making a deal with The Seven with Mallory (who was a guy in the comics) at the helm, a deal having to do with both parties no longer fighting each other, something like that; and that he was killed at some point after that deal was made, which led to The Boys coming back together, back in business, and then, that's what ended up leading to Billy recruiting Hughie.
Grace's death would work as a tool to bring everyone back together, no matter what. But Hughie doesn't know her as well as Billy, Frenchie, and M.M. do, which is why I think something else besides that will be the ultimate reason for Hughie to come back. And while Kimiko doesn't know Grace that well, either, she'll probably go wherever Frenchie goes.
So, Victoria has superpowers. And they seem to coincide with what happened at the end of the previous episode and with what happened to Susan. Based on that revelation, the scene with her and Grace talking to the Secretary of Defense is seen in a different light. In that scene, she placed blame on Vought ━ twice. She blamed them for what happened. Then, when Robert replied by stating that a bunch of their guys died, too, she responded by insinuating it was to cover their tracks. Those two details stick out now.
It's possible that she did all of that to push the President to start having people use Compound V, for some reason; political gain, perhaps, or maybe she's truly against Vought and is using Compound V; so she has the means to do it her way, like in the comics where The Boys used it to have better chances against those with superpowers and did things their way.
After all, the Church of the Collective is on Vought's side or something like that, and she probably knew that. Meaning, taking out Alastair wasn't a move that was done out of now being a villain but rather a necessary evil to deal a major blow to Vought, specifically Stan. I'm not convinced that she's going to be a villain. But I don't think that she was the one who killed Susan and those people in the courtroom in the previous episode.
At the end of this episode, we saw her eyes as a metallic, silvery color, which suggests that when she uses her powers, her eyes glow like that and that she has to be looking at the person, of course. And we didn't see her eyes do that in the courtroom. I think my theory about Compound V; Stan getting it into the systems of people who'd be in the courtroom; is correct or more likely than Victoria being responsible. And if I'm correct, that could mean Stan did that to push the President into supplying Compound V.
I don't quite have any ideas as to what the purpose of Victoria is going to be and what she's going to be used for in the third season because I think she's a character who's exclusive to the show. I don't think she's from the comics. But it's possible that there was a character in the comics who was somewhat significant and a politician, and her character is based around that character, or it's the same thing with her as it is with Grace and Stormfront; as in, their counterparts in the comics were men.
Also, what's up with Cindy? The last time we saw her was two episodes ago; she didn't show up again in the previous episode. There's no way she isn't going to return in the third season because that will be ridiculous on the writers' part to leave something like that open-ended and forget all about it. But, oddly, they didn't have her show up again in the last two episodes of the season. Could she have been in the comics, like Love Sausage, and that's why the last time we saw her was the way it was?
I think there were things done throughout this season, developments that were built, that are paving the way for the show to be closer to the comics, specifically in the third season and onward; certain aspects like the world itself, which I think is starting to become more similar to the way it was from the get-go in the comics, the way it felt; the relationships and dynamics between the characters, like Frenchie and Kimiko; new characters introduced that were prominent in the comics, developments to one's character that aligns said character more to his or her's counterpart in the comics, like the death of Billy's wife, Becca; so on and so forth. I think, as an entire thing, that was the highlight of the season, with there being moments that were other highlights, in a lesser and/or different sense.
Anyway, this finale was alright. I know that I rated the previous episode with an eight (out of ten), the highest rating I've given an episode of this season; it was because of the ending, but it was still like all the other episodes, as was this finale. The plot, story, or plotlines, whatever you'd call it, of this season was the main factor for the feeling of underwhelming-ness to each episode. Despite that, I still enjoyed watching each episode, including this finale. And, as I've said before, there were plenty of moments; yes, moments, throughout the season, throughout each episode, moments that were good and memorable, better than others, better than the episodes themselves. And, well, I guess that's good enough.
