The vibe shift as the station prepares for war is palpable. Unlike anything TNG ever could have done.
Everyone gets good little moments here. A good little Sisko speech, how upset Odo is and everyone trying to help him, Quark knowing exactly where not to be but Sisko knowing exactly how to play him. Everyone talks each other into everything. Love these nerds.
RE: https://beepboop.one/@Alexis/116216501934688697
"a bit" turned out to be "three days"
Ahh, a fresh new Star Trek show.
This is the 90s Trek I'd seen the most of before this go-around — for a few years it was just on all the time right when I'd come home from school, which means I have a fondness for #Voyager specifically that no wider reputation will ever beat in combat.
It'll be interesting to see how well I remember it — this pilot matches my memories quite well, though only now do I realise it crosses over with #DS9.
This is a good second episode premise — it's not at all about the other ship, which just turns out to be themselves, so it has all the space it needs to be almost entirely about how these people have to learn to work together.
anyway, look what they did to my boy
"Lungs stolen, holographic lungs put in, the crew has to go get the lungs back" is such a funny horrible thing to do to Neelix specifically.
A fun bantery one.
(I also just find the Emergency Medical Hologram's ongoing plight, which really comes into the foreground here, really compelling.)
This is the first time since establishing the whole Gamma Quadrant situation they've really brought up that they're rationing, but by playing it for comedy — Neelix's better-than-coffee sludge, Janeway's coffee quest — it really fails to land as the serious predicament they're in.
I do like how this one establishes Janeway's captaining style — she /wants/ to be close with the crew in ways Kirk, Picard, Sisko never let themselves be.
Only six hours into the "lost, far away from home, in an unexplored quadrant of the known universe" show, and already we're doing "anyway, here's a Romulan"?
I liked it as an hour of Star Trek — the twist that he's in 2351 instead of 2371 is great, and also I obviously love all this stuff with the EMH figuring out how to be a person — but, hm, already, really?
The Grand Nagus moves in with Quark and devotes his life to non-capitalist benevolence, causing Quark and Rom to think him insane. Meanwhile, Bashir is up for an award they never give to people at his point in their careers, but then everyone around him gets his hopes up just because they like him.
Solid mid-season comedy episode, of the exact kind you lose in the 10-episode streaming model.
A Holmes story with sci-fi bits glued on happens to Tom Paris. Fine — though we don't quite know Tom Paris well enough yet to know what's atypical behaviour — but we're not exactly in the Delta Quadrant here, are we.
Knowing the EMH's ongoing quest for a name of his own ends at him being called "The Doctor" for the next 900 years and counting doesn't make his earnest desire for an identity any less endearing — but it does make it funnier.
Finally, an episode of #Voyager that actually really deals with the show's premise — barred from accessing technology that would get them most of the way home by another culture's prime directive, how far will the crew of Voyager go to achieve their own goals regardless of how the Sikarians feel about it? Or how the rest of Voyager feels about it?
Tuvok siding with the conspirators is where this really clicks.
Seska being a spy isn't /that/ surprising, in part because of her tone about Starfleet and its rules last episode, in part because in the past 31 years I've never once heard anyone say the name "Seska" without also shaking their fist at the very thought of her.
Do wonder what exactly her plan was, though, if it falls apart at the first sign of blood test.
An easy complaint to level at this one would be that it's set almost entirely inside Julian's head and tells us very little about him we don't already know.
And, look, I always want an episode like this to redeem itself for me in the back half, but unfortunately it's set almost entirely inside Julian's head and tells us very little about him we don't already know.
Love the reframing of the mirror universe's narrative role from "an accident that happens to them" to "something that actively comes to get them," and with that, making it a known danger zone that needs to be navigated.
Making it about his wife is, like, yeah, that's the exact button you push on ol' Benny Sisko to get him to do exactly what you want. But she's not /her/, Ben, come on, you know this.
The holodeck episode that dares to ask, what if we just did exactly this three to six times a year.
The EMH's first taste of a name, taken away by the same holonarrative that gave it to him, is a touching note in what is otherwise already fairly paint-by-numbers stuff. Fun hour of Voyager, mind.
Garak's torture of Odo is as harrowing as anything a #StarTrek lead has ever been through that didn't lead to either death or complete loss of identity. Awful.
Glad to get to spend so much time with Garak, though a little baffled he's allowed back on the station?
All of this really feels like another big step up for this show.
Always nice to go from an all-timer two-parter to a #Voyager medical crisis episode that's as braindead as the EMH says Chakotay is.
Okay, okay, it's not /that/ bad, the paranoia of it all does add up to something compelling in the end, but the second they go "Chakotay's brain is empty and also there's a ghost floating around the ship," they /should/ connect far more dots than they do.
What could easily come out as an hour of B'Elanna just not behaving like she should instead comes out as a solid getting-to-know-her episode. I'm glad it doesn't just end with "and then she was completely fine with the duality of her identity," I like that as a defined part of her character.
You know, you don't /think/ the guys who stole Neelix's lungs will recur, do you.
Frustrating for it to take until the season finale to really get another "Maquis mindset vs Starfleet mindset" episode. (The Maquis way of going about things is, of course, objectively correct.)
"Get the cheese to sickbay" an all-timer line.
A wobbly non-finale final episode of a wobbly first season.
I often complain about certain episodes of #StarTrek being hours of characters just not behaving like themselves, which this is, too, but in this #DS9 it's all in service of telling us more about Dax's history, and so adds up to a genuinely lovely little character exploration hour — an actual plot doesn't set until the back third, but I don't mind.
The subplot about Nog getting into Starfleet continues to endear.
The old 1930s Ford truck floating in space is a great visual hook. Can the actual episode itself live up to that opening? It... doesn't quite pull it off. But I do think this is just a good, fun hour of #StarTrek.
Actors having to play absolute bafflement reacting to something totally normal to the audience is always a delight, as is Janeway's joyful reverence at getting to meet Amelia Earhart.
Alex Daily! 