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VIP

9

Could not take it seriously with the robots' abilities that don't even exist in the year in which this was set, let alone the slew of appliances with "PAL Chip installed" that could do completely ridiculous things. Not one of these devices should have been able to pose a threat, unless they were intentionally manufactured with features that would never apply to any intended use of the product.*

I can ignore little details that are embellished or ignored for the purpose of telling a better story, but when the entire premise of a film set in the present rests on impossible and unrealistic technology? Pass.

Even better, no one thought of just… finding another PAL retail store when the mall's router was destroyed with the upload at 98% complete? This film's entire spectacle rests on its characters' poor decision-making and lack of forethought—including the defective robots that join the gang and tell them about the solution.

I'll admit that the story is a bit heartwarming, but it's nothing new. It's also trying too hard regarding commentary on the influence of technology in today's world. Several lines of dialogue are extremely heavy-handed, as if the writers expect the audience to understand nothing and need to have the "moral" of the story handed to them.

Ugh. I wanted to love it. At least I can steal some playlist entries from the soundtrack.

* — See: Furbies that spit plasma beams, laptops that could close on your hands and crush them, refrigerators that walk… I could go on and on about that mall scene.

Average episode rating: 5.923

That feels about right. I could be talked into Math.floor()ing that, too. Oops, I just did.

The season got off to a pretty underwhelming and off-putting start, then got pretty good for a couple episodes before dropping back into the trap of overly sexualizing every situation possible.

Hollywood writers—especially any who work for Syfy—say it with me: Not everything is about sex.

Again.

Say it again.

Repeat until you actually understand the words.

I call out Syfy writers specifically because one need only look at the other shows on their slate recently to find examples of characters being put in bed with each other for no particular reason other than "sex sells". It happens in Killjoys a lot, too—another Syfy Original. Based on just the two, I'm not inclined to give any other Syfy original shows a chance. (I haven't watched enough of Wynonna Earp to know if it also falls into this trap, but the likelihood that I will ever watch another episode of that show has just dropped even further.)

Between characters screwing each other at every possible opportunity and the sheer amount of gratuitous blood & gore, I'm downright resentful that I still want to know what happens next. This show wasn't fun to watch, and it's not even using the sex and violence to make a worthwhile point. The real surprise for me, at this point, is that I managed to get through the whole season in just under 9 months.

Oh no, we lost 11% of our energy reserves! Janeway's gotta give up coffee to save power, but using the holodeck is totally fine? (And apparently even more fine when that figure doubles.)

Convenient that Chakotay happens to have his medicine bundle even though his ship was destroyed in Caretaker, isn't it? I don't remember the Maquis crew members exactly getting a chance to salvage their belongings before that Kazon ship took their shuttle in the flank…

Based on the deck layout in Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force, Neelix turns left out of the mess hall right into a dead-end when he's heading off to argue with Janeway. Turning left got him out of the shot faster, I guess.

Someone in effects should have checked the script. Those nucleonic beams were very much not parallel to the ship's central axis.

OK, nitpicks aside, I'm of two minds on this episode.

On the one hand, it does a lot of great work establishing elements of the series that I really do love (if only for nostalgic reasons, in some cases). We get a hint of the Doctor becoming more independent ("A hologram that programs himself…"). We get jokes about Neelix's cooking. Tom is already establishing himself as a holodeck wizard of sorts (even if he does write his female characters like a chauvinist).

But we also get some of the bullshit. The whole premise is just a bit hokey, and the Neelix/Kes relationship is all the more awkward when you start the series already knowing that she's two years old and will be dead by age ten. (That kiss? So uncomfortable.)

Still, Voyager was my first Trek show. I can't help but like it despite myself.

Patrick Stewart spins around the wrong way after Brent Spiner "hits" him in Engineering… No wonder that particular fight call seemed extra cheesy.

Both times Graves transfers his consciousness, the implied mechanics leave major plot holes. Who turned Data back on? How did Data get on the floor? Who unplugged him?!

While I wouldn't necessarily call this a great story—it has a lot of elements that were common in science fiction up to that time, and the plot holes are awfully big—it is a great watch. Brent Spiner doing just about anything makes for a great watch.

I'm a bit disappointed to read that a scene where Data was to riff on Picard's bald head, after his attempt at a Riker-like beard failed, was cut from the script. That would have been hilarious. But maybe it would have included another instance of Deanna making some excuse to avoid laughing in front of Data, who is an android and would not feel insulted by it, so… maybe it was better left out. (That bit was very out of character, I thought. Troi shouldn't feel the need to hide her reaction from Data. He'd find it useful feedback, if anything.)

Besides Spiner's usual obvious fun-having, there are some nice little writing touches to think about.

IMDB pointed out (because I haven't read Dickens in forever) that the disease Graves had is probably a reference to a character of the same name in A Tale of Two Cities, which is pretty great.

Graves' name itself, while not really a literary reference per se, is still funny. A man trying to cheat death is named after the thing in which he does not want to end up (a grave). Har har?

(I also realized early on this this episode why Dr. Pulaski must be so dour… She's played by Diana Muldaur, who practically has "dour" in her name… but that's a cheap shot, I guess.)

Riker calls for emergency attention from security, so who shows up? Worf, with Geordi. Neither has a phaser. La Forge isn't even part of the security division—at this point in the series, he's the helmsman. But Dr. Crusher happens to bring along a phaser when called to a medical emergency onboard the ship… because that makes sense. (We'll try to ignore how Worf and Geordi play along with Admiral Quinn's lies about what happened to Riker. That's also bad.)

That chair Remmick is sitting in looks an awful lot like the one used for Admiral Jameson in "Too Short a Season". That's because it was the same prop, redressed.

Not a nitpick, but doesn't fit into the review proper, either: I had no idea Captain Rixx was a Bolian. This is the first appearance of the species in Star Trek, and I guess I'm used to the later makeup design—which uses a much more saturated blue. Bonus trivia: The Bolians were named after Cliff Bole, who went on to direct a total of 42 Star Trek episodes across TNG, DS9, & VOY. He also directed on numerous other well-known shows like MacGyver, The X-Files, Baywatch, and Charlie's Angels.

Some background information on what was happening in the television world at the time explains why this episode wasn't as good as you might think it should be. After all, it's clearly meant to be a taut thriller about the possibility of Starfleet being seized by aliens. It's obviously meant to be part of a larger story arc—that started several episodes back, when Quinn gave Picard that warning.

The writers' strike of 1988 was ultimately responsible for this letdown. This "Conspiracy" plotline was meant to be intertwined with the Borg, who were to be introduced at the start of season two. But the writers' strike delayed the rest of the Borg storyline several months, and this piece of it was dropped. That's why nothing ever comes of the "homing beacon" Data reports.

It's too bad. Aside from it being entirely too easy for Picard and Riker to win against the "mother creature" (in Remmick's body), I enjoyed this one. It's not perfect, but "Conspiracy" as part of something bigger would have been better than what ultimately happened: treating this like any other incident-of-the-week—essentially, pressing the "big reset button" and pretending like these events never occurred.

Well, that commentary on the ozone layer wasn't pointed at all, was it? Downright in-your-face, that was.

I think my favorite part of this episode was Jerry Hardin. Having started watching The X-Files this past summer, I have really enjoyed his appearances as "Deep Throat" on that show. They are few (only 11 of 218 episodes), but welcome. I can also look forward to his return in "Time's Arrow" as Samuel Clemens, and recall his brief appearance on Voyager in the just-okay episode "Emanations".

Actually, "When The Bough Breaks" is pretty well-written. We have an alien race that has become complacent and arrogant, secure enough in their technological superiority that they feel comfortable simply taking what they want directly from the Federation flagship. We have Picard, studied in negotiations, well aware that care must be taken to avoid the Aldeans giving up and simply retreating behind their cloak once more. And we have Doctor Crusher, whose investigations (cheesy ozone-layer comments aside) dig right to the heart of the Aldeans' problems and provide a better solution than they had settled on.

My only real question concerns the number of children taken. Counselor Troi claims to sense "thousands of minds" as Enterprise approaches the planet's location, but we only ever see about half a dozen Aldeans. They take seven children, including Wesley, in a ploy to rejuvenate their entire society… off of a ship carrying roughly 1,000 people. Surely that figure includes more than seven children?

This episode hits me every time, and I always forget just how meaningful the plot is until Captain Keogh shows up with his intimidating Galaxy-class starship and I remember what's about to happen.

Ultimately, the episode title could not possibly be more relevant. Everything that happens eventually serves to paint the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion in full color, and we know exactly who they are by the end. We don't know what they want, precisely—even if we can guess from the name, "Dominion"—but we do know that agents of the Dominion will stop at nothing to carry out whatever orders the Founders have given them.

I did forget about Eris being a Vorta until they all made it back to Deep Space Nine, but I have to agree with @LeftHandedGuitarist on at least these points: Her telekinetic power is never displayed by any other Vorta in the Star Trek canon; and it's extremely odd that she should fail to recognize Odo as a Founder. Eris was meant to return in at least two episodes ("The Search, Part II" and "The Ship"), but Molly Hagan was unavailable. In the process the writers seem to have forgotten about the Vorta's supposed telekinetic ability. As for Eris failing to recognize Odo as a Founder, all I can think of is that the writers hadn't yet thought far enough ahead. Later we find out that the Vorta consider themselves "those who serve the Founders", and that the hierarchy of the Dominion government is essentially Founders > Vorta > Jem'Hadar > everyone else. But this early on, that structure likely hadn't solidified in the writers' room yet.

Certainly there are other little things I could nitpick, like how Jake seems to think putting back the single piece of the autopilot subsystem he removed would be too difficult, but overall this is a good, gut-punching (on account of the Odyssey's fate), first real introduction to the Dominion's true colors.

The very first line of the episode is a Family Guy reference? Please, Stewie's "mom" gag has no place here.

Nice to hear that TCAS survived into the 25th century and is equipped on spacefaring shuttlecraft.
Actually, I cracked up a bit when the shuttle's computer started chanting, "Too low, terrain."

I wonder if Dr. Finn is a distant descendant of Kevin (of Kevin (Probably) Saves the World)…

The character concept for Isaac is fine enough, but every time they show him walking around his costume messes with it. An artificial life form of Isaac's type just doesn't look right with a fabric outer garment, especially because his garment is clearly designed to look like a metal exterior.

Also, continuity issue: When the Orville detects the aliens approaching the shuttle, Bortus reports "two dozen" unidentified life forms. From when Isaac begins stunning the approaching attackers to when Marcus joins him, Isaac has already fired at least 22 shots (yes, I went back and counted them). Yet, there is still a large number of aliens for them to deter. So many that they are nearly overwhelmed before the shuttle from the Orville bombards the aliens with weapons fire from the air. Something's not right there…

Did SG-1 need to show some Jaffa women? Yes, definitely. The fact that we only ever see Jaffa men fighting for their respective system lords needed to be addressed somehow, and this story did cover it as far as Moloc is concerned.

However, I was deeply disappointed in the wardrobe choices made for this episode. Just like in every video game or action movie featuring women in fighting roles, the Hak'tyl warriors wore unrealistically skimpy outfits that would provide no real protection in battle. These costumes were no better than what Hathor wore* a few seasons ago—and in that case, "Hathor never expects to find herself in active combat" was a flimsy but valid excuse. Ishta and the others here go off to raid other Jaffa parties for symbiotes with no armor at all. It's no wonder they lose so many good warriors in trying to procure symbiotes for the children among them.

We also have to acknowledge that Teal'c's romance with Ishta makes no sense. Had Christopher Judge not written the script, I very much doubt that idea ever would have come up. Though I have no evidence to prove that it was indeed his idea, the lack of any co-writer credits for this script is about as damning as possible. To think that Jolene Blalock took a break from T'Pol's Bermanization on Star Trek: Enterprise to film this, where her character was arguably treated even worse… Sigh.

Honestly, I'm out of energy now to also complain about the huge gaping plot hole: there were at least three symbiotes available at the SGC for reimplantation into Neith, since their original Jaffa hosts had given them up in favor of Tretonin treatments.

In writing this down, I talked myself into revising my rating from 6/10 to 5/10. Whoops.

* — And at least Hathor's skimpy costume covered where her symbiote pouch should be; "Birthright" overlooked that detail a few times.