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Finished rewatching Voyager Season 2 so I'm catching up on commentary Meld- A good Tuvok episode with maybe my favorite Tuvok moment (where he gets tired of Neelix annoying him so he grabs him by the neck and chokes him out). This also introduces Lon Suder, who I guess Jeri Taylor really didn't like and had no interest in using as a character, so he only shows up in this and again in 'Basics' where he gets killed off. Dreadnought- Actually a decent 'ticking clock' episode, where Voyager has to stop this reprogrammed Cardassian weapon from blowing up an innocent DQ planet. B'Elanna's back-and-forth with the computer AI that has her voice was entertaining if nothing else. Death Wish- The first of several Q appearances on Voyager. I thought this episode actually asks some interesting questions about immortality and what it's actually like if you were also omnipotent. The brief Riker cameo is also always a good thing. The actor who plays the Q who is trying to kill himself does a good job. My only complaint is that the TNG Q really lays on the misogyny very thick against Janeway, although it later turns out he has a thing for her which may be part of it? I don't know. But that's easily the weakest part of the episode. Lifesigns- Everything with The Doctor and Denara Pel is handled well, but like in some other Trek episodes this is a very inappropriate relationship between doctor and patient and that barely ever comes up. Investigations- This wraps up some arcs throughout the season, one being the Maquis traitor who is feeding information to the Kazon to try and sabotage Voyager. The other is a more subtle one, that of Paris being insubordinate and late to assignments which gets him into hot water with Chakotay. The episode tries to get Neelix involved as the ship's 'journalist', but I don't think that ever comes up again outside of this one episode. I think the Paris arc was executed well, but the whole Maquis traitor thing never really goes anywhere as his whole reason for betraying the crew is because he is initially upset about Janeway not doing enough to get them home. Which is not something that Seska could ever really help with considering the Kazon have inferior technology to Starfleet. So they do kill off that guy, but he never really did anything of consequence so I don't get what the point of that was. Deadlock- AKA the episode where Harry dies. I appreciate that this episode has a lot of tension almost the entire time, and manages to kill off two characters without really figuring out how that will be resolved until the final minutes. This episode is one that brings up the complaint I have throughout the series, that being how the ship just recovers easily from significant damage. The surviving Voyager has a completely ruined bridge but I guess that is fixable in just a couple of weeks? Come on. Innocence- This episode has one of the laziest alien costumes I've seen since TOS. It's literally just pantyhose over their heads. This is also yet another episode where everything could have been solved early on if the aliens had told the crew the truth instead of potentially starting a conflict between the two sides. The Thaw- One of the more highly rated of the early Voyager episodes. The producers lucked out that they got someone as talented as Michael McKean to be The Clown, because otherwise I don't think this episode works well. In a lot of ways this is a 'holodeck gone wrong' type of episode even if it doesn't take place on a holodeck. He's in a mask the whole time, but there is also an appearance by the actor who plays Mr. Homn on TNG. Tuvix- I had watched an episode recently of a YouTuber's show that covers this episode, and they were not wrong that the final scenes where Tuvix is begging to live and the crew just stare blankly at him are very disturbing. The entire reason Tuvix ends up being killed is because nobody really likes him that much and they like the other two people better, which is hosed up to say the least. The entire affair is pretty hosed up, and Janeway is just stone-cold in how she takes Tuvix to his 'execution'. Resolutions- I wish the show had done less of these 'character x is lost forever' type episodes because we all know none of it is permanent. We also get some hints at a potential Janeway/Chakotay romance but nothing ever comes of this. The scenes where Harry Kim gets extremely insubordinate because Tuvok is refusing to ask the Vidiians for help (as Janeway had ordered before she stepped down from command) get a bit absurd, as I really can't recall many other times that Kim gets this upset about anything. And of course it turns out that Janeway was right and the attempt to meet with the Vidiians turns into a trap. Basics Part I- I get very frustrated with several of the Kazon episodes because it seems like the crew has to get dumber for them to be any kind of a threat. Like it's blatantly obvious at the beginning that Seska's story is full of poo poo and the entire thing is an elaborate setup to take over Voyager, but everyone wants to go help her out because it's not like she has betrayed them at every turn! Several Kazon ships start attacking Voyager in a seemingly unimportant area over a period of days, but at no point does Janeway wonder why. They completely take the rescued Kazon officer at his word, which again, there is no reason for him not to be in the Brig instead of quarters where they aren't monitoring him. For everyone to be that stupid they deserve to get their ship taken. Another funny moment is when Janeway is telling I think Tuvok to hold off on using the torpedoes which I found hilarious considering how often they use them in less threatening situations.
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Mar 21, 2021 20:43
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HD DAD posted:He was adorable in that one Doctor Who episode where he played a Russian scientist. All he wanted to do was just listen to his Ultravox cassette There's an episode of Gargoyles where he's basically just acting against himself. He voices a character who spends an entire episode interacting with a future version.
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Mar 21, 2021 22:17
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Lon Suder was too good a character for Trek.
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Mar 21, 2021 22:25
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Burning_Monk posted:Lon Suder was too good a character for Trek. quote:Michael Piller wanted the character of Lon Suder – whom Piller had created, earlier in the second season – to survive the events of this episode, but Jeri Taylor was uninterested in further developing the character, who is consequently one of many who die in the episode's final moments. Piller commented, "It's a real wipeout. Jeri never cared for Suder and had no interest in developing him any further, so there was no point in keeping him alive. And a dramatic arc is fully realized by having his death occur at the end of part two. He heroically sacrifices himself for the ship." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) According to Jeri Taylor herself, the decision to have Suder killed was made because the writers couldn't see how he could really be redeemed and he was simply too difficult to integrate with the other characters believably and well. (Delta Quadrant, p. 129)
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Mar 21, 2021 22:38
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Burning_Monk posted:Lon Suder was too good a character for Trek. I haven't re-watched season two of Voyager in a long time, nor do I have any reason to do so anytime soon, but I seem to recall Suder being a pretty boring, non-entity of a character, rather he was just played exceptionally well by Brad Dourif. Really, if anything I'm more shocked that Suder was Dourif's only Trek role. He seems to pop up in, like, every show that runs longer than a season.
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Mar 21, 2021 22:40
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FlamingLiberal posted:Jeri Taylor insisted that he die Brad Dourif is a personal hero of mine and that is blasphemy! quote:because the writers couldn't see how he could really be redeemed and he was simply too difficult to integrate with the other characters believably and well. writing hard; no work.
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Mar 21, 2021 22:42
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What is it with Trek writers and having characters be too “irredeemable” to do anything else with them.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:01
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HD DAD posted:What is it with Trek writers and having characters be too “irredeemable” to do anything else with them.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:02
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HD DAD posted:What is it with Trek writers and having characters be too “irredeemable” to do anything else with them. I mean, they had the literal Terran Emperor as a recurring character on Discovery, and she only left to go star in her own spinoff. Although that might be a bit too far in the other direction.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:08
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Starship mine would have been improved if Picard was getting his dune buggy racing helmet instead of a saddle.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:22
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Yvonmukluk posted:I mean, they had the literal Terran Emperor as a recurring character on Discovery, and she only left to go star in her own spinoff. Although that might be a bit too far in the other direction. I remember early in season 3 after they reach Starfleet headquarters they are doing an interrogation of her and she somehow "hacks" the 1000 year advanced hologram doing the interrogation by blinking? Remembering now that they came from pre-TOS days, did they even HAVE interactable holograms that weren't just a way to display transmissions or recordings back before they jumped into the future? Why would she be an expert in programming holograms she's never encountered before that are 1000 years more advanced than her time, even if they EXISTED back then (which as far as I know they didn't?)
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Mar 21, 2021 23:25
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The MU might be slightly more advanced than the Prime Universe thanks to the 23rd century Defiant popping into the 22nd century MU, but yeah, that’s an unbelievable leap.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:27
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HD DAD posted:The MU might be slightly more advanced than the Prime Universe thanks to the 23rd century Defiant popping into the 22nd century MU, but yeah, that’s an unbelievable leap. The Defiant would have come back to during Trials and Tribble-ations right? So that would have been years after the Discovery encountered and took the Empress back to their prime universe. Or was there another time the Defiant went back in time? I think they only time DS9 went to the MU was in their present time.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:30
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It would be like if we brought someone back from the Middle ages and they sat down and whistled into a telephone headset to hack the switchboard.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:38
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Nitrousoxide posted:The Defiant would have come back to during Trials and Tribble-ations right? So that would have been years after the Discovery encountered and took the Empress back to their prime universe. It showed up in ENT: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/In_a_Mirror,_Darkly_(episode)
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Mar 21, 2021 23:38
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The Enterprise MU two parter, where the Constitution Defiant ended up in Mirror 2154 after disappearing in The Tholian Web.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:39
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Nitrousoxide posted:I remember early in season 3 after they reach Starfleet headquarters they are doing an interrogation of her and she somehow "hacks" the 1000 year advanced hologram doing the interrogation by blinking?
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Mar 21, 2021 23:46
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Once you get to the point where Holograms are just different facets of your personality, each with their own uniquely horrible accent... what else is there to improve?
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Mar 21, 2021 23:55
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Nitrousoxide posted:It would be like if we brought someone back from the Middle ages and they sat down and whistled into a telephone headset to hack the switchboard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxzvPnc2aUg&t=102s (1:40 or so if the timestamp doesn't carry)
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Mar 21, 2021 23:56
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Timby posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxzvPnc2aUg&t=102s Man what happened to her career
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Mar 22, 2021 00:14
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I've never watched a Terminator film past the first two, is 3 worth watching?
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Mar 22, 2021 00:27
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Nitrousoxide posted:I remember early in season 3 after they reach Starfleet headquarters they are doing an interrogation of her and she somehow "hacks" the 1000 year advanced hologram doing the interrogation by blinking? Given the way they had the entire rest of the Discovery crew deliver "to know [her] is to love [her] is to know [her]" eulogies, I'm about 50/50 on "someone on staff has an Emperor Georgieou body pillow at home" and "CBS said we have to pump her up in advance of the S31 show"
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Mar 22, 2021 00:29
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I've never watched a Terminator film past the first two, is 3 worth watching? Of all the sequels, 3 is probably the least-offensive. It's basically a remake of 2 with the serial numbers filed off, but outside of some horrific attempts at humor and some wonky effects that haven't aged well at all, it's fine, and there are some scenes which carry some legitimate pathos to them. Schwarzenegger hadn't gotten to the point of self-parody at the time of Terminator 3, either. The rest of the sequels ... woof. Salvation is the only one I ever saw in the theater, and all I remember of it is saying "I'm sorry, I am so, so sorry" to my ex-wife during the entire drive back home from the theater. (Oh, and I guess Anton Yelchin was pretty good in it.) Please don't bother with Genisys and Dark Fate. They're both wretched, but for different, yet equally terrible, reasons.
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Mar 22, 2021 00:35
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The TV show was pretty decent, better than any of the movies past the first two.
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Mar 22, 2021 00:42
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The TV show was by far the best sequel past 2, it had a decent first season and an excellent second season before abrupt cliffhanger cancellation.
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Mar 22, 2021 00:51
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MikeJF posted:The TV show was by far the best sequel past 2, it had a decent first season and an excellent second season before abrupt cliffhanger cancellation.
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Mar 22, 2021 00:58
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T-3 had a fantastic ending. But yeah the tv show was the best.
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Mar 22, 2021 00:58
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Astroman posted:T-3 had a fantastic ending.
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Mar 22, 2021 01:00
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Marshal Radisic posted:It also feels like the pool of writers has shrunk as well. While back in the '80s and '90s you could get a whole bunch of different writers you'd never heard of before, nowadays it just seems to be the same half-dozen names coming up again and again. Which makes some sense - it must be almost as impenetrable to writers as it is readers, what's the pitch to a new writer to make Star Trek novel currently when they're now mired in 20 years of completely alternate continuity detached from the shows? How many books does a person have to get through to catch up to the status quos of Project Full Circle and whatever state the Alpha Quadrant is in since the ultimate Borg war and the fallout of that? The writers left are likely the ones actually invested in and knowledgeable of the timeline that's been created. Compare things to the pre-Relaunch novels and while there will be a boatload of hokey stuff and continuity gaffs in those, they're also pretty much timeless since even the most outlandish ones are standalone adventures spanning 1-3 books at most. Relaunch has out lived it's purpose at this point since the franchise is highly active again.
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Mar 22, 2021 01:00
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Astroman posted:T-3 had a fantastic ending. Agreed. Most of T3 was just more of the same formula established by the first two, and the movie sure looks like it's going toward exactly the finish you'd expect, but then it actually manages to surprise you. There were probably studio execs who didn't want to take a chance like that and wanted the boring formulaic end, but I'm glad the writers stuck to their guns. And suddenly I'm remembering the movie A.I. When watching that one, I thought to myself "wow, good ending, I can't believe they had the guts to do that" and then unfortunately the movie kept going for like another half hour and got really stupid.
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Mar 22, 2021 01:13
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Powered Descent posted:And suddenly I'm remembering the movie A.I. When watching that one, I thought to myself "wow, good ending, I can't believe they had the guts to do that" and then unfortunately the movie kept going for like another half hour and got really stupid. I will forever remain convinced that the ending of A.I. came from Spielberg, when he took over the movie following Kubrick's death. Like, he just flat-out said "There's no way I'm ending the movie with David asking to become a real boy until his batteries run out, I've got to graft something happier onto this." Everyone involved has said the movie's ending is loyal to what Kubrick and Ian Watson came up with, but I just don't buy it, not when taken in the context of pretty much everything Watson has ever written, not in the context of Kubrick being ... well, Kubrick.
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Mar 22, 2021 01:22
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I dunno, I thought the end to A.I. was incredibly bleak. David is reactivated, and he doesn't seem to really understand or care that humanity has been extinct for millennia, that he's speaking to the hyper-advanced descendants of robots like himself, or that they value him for what he remembers of when humans were alive. All he wants is the "mother" who never loved him in the first place. He doesn't even really care that resurrecting her will "burn her memory out of the universe" or something; he wants his mommy. It's a fairy-tale ending, but in context it comes across as poisonously false.
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Mar 22, 2021 01:42
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I really hated the poo poo out of a.i.
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Mar 22, 2021 02:02
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MikeJF posted:The TV show was by far the best sequel past 2, it had a decent first season and an excellent second season before abrupt cliffhanger cancellation. Of all the shows I enjoyed that were canceled (and never got even a bone thrown at the fans like Farscape or Jericho), this one stung probably the most.
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Mar 22, 2021 02:16
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Where is the Klingon Empire in relation to Deep Space 9 and Cardassia?
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Mar 22, 2021 02:17
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I said come in! posted:Where is the Klingon Empire in relation to Deep Space 9 and Cardassia? It's, you know, over thataway. (gestures vaguely)
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Mar 22, 2021 02:20
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Powered Descent posted:It's, you know, over thataway. (gestures vaguely) That is what I figured haha. Trying to figure out some of these deep space 9 plots.
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Mar 22, 2021 02:22
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I said come in! posted:Where is the Klingon Empire in relation to Deep Space 9 and Cardassia? There's never been a full on official canon map of the galaxy. However all the semi-canon maps are broadly like this one:  And some of the on-screen maps, like the one in first season Disco, are fairly similar to this one. They're always pretty loose with the alpha/beta quadrant designations, but I think they have said that Sol is the border, the Federation stretches across both, and the Romulans and Klingons are mainly in the beta quad.
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Mar 22, 2021 02:23
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T-2: No fate, the future is what we make it. T-3: JK, there is no avoiding fate, judgement day is inevitable. T-3 sucks.
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Mar 22, 2021 02:24
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Actually the Disco map is just that map I posted with the A/B border shifted a bit to the right.
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Mar 22, 2021 02:28
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