{"id":3507,"date":"2023-09-01T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3507"},"modified":"2023-11-01T12:24:32","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T12:24:32","slug":"trekaday-104-imperfection-drive-repression-critical-care-inside-man-body-and-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/09\/01\/trekaday-104-imperfection-drive-repression-critical-care-inside-man-body-and-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday #104: Imperfection, Drive, Repression, Critical Care, Inside Man, Body and Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

VOY S07E02 Imperfection <\/strong>(\"4). We\u2019re saying goodbye to some of the Borgettes, but weirdly not all of them. This nevertheless causes Seven to start weeping, even as she\u2019s preparing to start letting out their alcoves on AirBnB. The remaining mini-Borg wants to embark on a career in Starfleet, but Seven\u2019s glitches are getting worse and now she is rejected by her own alcove and so is unable to regenerate. Only a new cortical node will cure her and Janeway elects to go scavenging in a Borg debris field, putting up only a token resistance when Tuvok, Paris and Chakotay insist on coming with her. The treasure hunt for Seven\u2019s replacement watch-spring isn\u2019t really the point of course. It\u2019s Seven\u2019s angry wounded pride at being publicly laid low, and her refusal to let Icheb (or anyone) risk his life to save hers. Once again Jeri Ryan does exceptional work, but Icheb\u2019s strand is a little contrived and more than a little soapy, and Janeway presumably tosses a coin before she decides whether to order people to submit to medical treatment against their wishes or not. Nifty effects work as the node is plucked out of and slotted into Seven\u2019s forehead right on camera. Brannon Braga steps down as showrunner to work on Enterprise<\/strong> and his place his taken by Kenneth Biller.<\/p>\n

VOY S07E03 Drive <\/strong>(\"2.5). In an act of magnificently reckless stupidity, even by his standards, Tom Paris elects to \u201ctest\u201d the rebuilt Delta Flyer<\/em> by entering into an asteroid steeple chase with a passing rando. Hot rodding turns to the rescue of a distressed damsel in the form of Cyia Batten\u2019s perky Irina, and then Paris arguing passionately that the very best use of Voyager\u2019s resources right now would be for him to participate in friendly race with more randos. This kind of \u201clet\u2019s make the best of being stuck out here decades from home,\u201d I frequently find hard to take, and when we combine \u201coh what larks, we get to play the go-fast game,\u201d with the seventies sitcom plot of \u201cdon\u2019t tell my wife I\u2019m off to the races\u201d it all feels relentlessly trivial, and appears to hinge on Paris annoying Torres back into his arms. McNeill is fine, and Dawson does much to ground this gossamer silliness, but I\u2019m not really invested in the outcome of the race or the relationship, which made this one a bit of a slog. Evidently this was intended to follow Imperfection<\/em>, which makes no issue of the Delta Flyer<\/em> having been recently rebuilt and in which Paris is already seen wearing his wedding ring.<\/p>\n

VOY S07E04 Repression <\/strong>(\"3.5). I\u2019m glad Torres is there to point out the absurdity of Paris creating a perfect 3D replica of 1950s movie house which showed stereoscopic movies requiring red\/green cardboard glasses. But what\u2019s even sillier is that this is the 1990s writers being nostalgic for their parents\u2019 generation. Tom Paris is being nostalgic for a time well over 400 years in the past, rather as if you or I were spending all of our free time in a recreation of the court of King Henry VIII. Once the bodies start dropping, this becomes more creepy and more interesting, with experienced director Winrich Kolbe finding some interesting angles and moody lighting. As if anyone cared, it\u2019s the ex-Maquis crewmembers who are being targeted. Tim Russ is spectacularly good (and even Garrett Wang gets a good scene), but none of these characters have had any real development for years, and the split crew plotline feels grafted on from another show entirely. Wasn\u2019t it just last week that everyone onboard ship was all \u201cVoyager<\/em>! Starfleet! Ra-ra-ra!\u201d That having been said, the final act drips with atmosphere and Manchurian Candidate<\/em> style-intrigue, and I\u2019d probably rather have a bad idea well executed than a great idea thrown away.<\/p>\n

VOY S07E05 Critical Care <\/strong>(\"2.5). This week\u2019s Space Arthur Daley is trying to flog Voyager<\/em>\u2019s EMH to Benny Stulwicz from LA Law<\/em>. He\u2019s stuck in the middle of some kind of ghastly bureaucratic field hospital and his medical ethics compel him to muck in when wounded start arriving. Since the Doctor\u2019s program can\u2019t be backed up or copied (for\u2026 reasons) the Doctor left on board the ship is a useless knock-off \u2013 so pathetic that one wonders why the miscreant bothered at all. The notion of a society where the rich have better care is scarcely new, and while it\u2019s always nice to see Star Trek<\/strong> getting political, this is preachy and obvious stuff. But centring the Doctor rarely hurts. As well as Larry Drake, this features familiar faces in the form of 24<\/em>\u2019s Gregory Itzin, Jim O\u2019Heir from Parks and Recreation<\/em> and the familiar tones of William Daniels from Knight Rider<\/em>.<\/p>\n

VOY S07E06 Inside Man <\/strong>(\"4). It\u2019s our annual visit from the Alpha Quadrant and this time it\u2019s a hologram of Barclay transmitted to Voyager<\/em>. He promises to have the ship home in a matter of days and while it would be amazing to think that the series is going to spend the last eighteen or so episodes dealing with Voyager<\/em>\u2019s crew re-integrating into Federation society, who are we kidding? This is yet another we\u2019ve-found-a-way-whoops-half-a-mo-no-we-haven\u2019t-soz story. Still, that\u2019s no reason to write it off and it\u2019s always a pleasure to see Dwight Schultz, amusingly playing an idealised version of Barclay, exactly what he would have designed for himself. The contrast is made clear when we cut back to Richard McGonagle (and Marina Sirtis) and see the real Reg wondering whether his swaggering avatar made it or not. This makes it fairly clear that the advice given by, let\u2019s call him Alpha-Reg, isn\u2019t entirely on the level but it\u2019s still fun waiting for the other shoe to drop. The Ferengi turn out to be behind it all, but they\u2019re TNG<\/strong> Season 2 Ferengi, not DS9<\/strong> Season 6 Ferengi. The fake-out at the end is too confusing to be truly successful, and it\u2019s frustrating that Voyager<\/em>\u2019s crew is left in the dark about \u201cBarclay\u201d\u2019s motives.<\/p>\n

VOY S07E07 Body and Soul <\/strong>(\"4.5). One of my absolute favourite things in movies and TV shows is seeing the regular cast impersonate each other. I just get such a kick out of it, I\u2019m not sure why. We previously had an episode seemingly written just so that Jeri Ryan could show off her versatility (wonderful, loved it). Here, the Doctor has to animate Seven\u2019s body in order to evade anti-photonics forces. This is preposterous stuff, which is even more scientifically illiterate than usual, and with more than a whiff of Red Dwarf<\/em> (specifically the episode \u2018Bodyswap\u2019) but the upshot is completely delightful, and I\u2019m utterly won over. Seven and Captain Ranek raiding the replicator is absolutely hilarious. There\u2019s even a little anti-slavery parable stirred in (as well as a dash of homophobia, sad to say). Also, Tuvok is going through pon-farr and sweats and jitters his way through his shift on the bridge for some reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOY S07E02 Imperfection (). We\u2019re saying goodbye to some of the Borgettes, but weirdly not all of them. This nevertheless causes Seven to start weeping, even as she\u2019s preparing to start letting out their alcoves on AirBnB. The remaining mini-Borg wants to embark on a career in Starfleet, but Seven\u2019s glitches are getting worse and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[19,79,528,538],"class_list":["post-3507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-trekaday","tag-voyager"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-Uz","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3509,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions\/3509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}