Full disclosure: I only ever watched Star Trek in high school. I have only hazy memories of ST:TNG and DS9 (like I thought Troi and Worf were wicked cool, but that it was weird Picard was French with a British accent), but really like SF/F, and know a fair amount about the ‘verse.
On a whim, though, I started watching Voyager. I’d heard it improved on the issues I had with Babylon 5 (like that B5 is constantly the adventures of white boys in space!!!!!!!!!!) and plus there’s a black Vulcan. Basically, Voyager is the Gilligan’s Island of Star Trek
The Voyager got flung out to the Delta Quadrant because of a super powerful alien, and it’ll take them 75 years to get back home to the Alpha Quadrant. There’s no other Federation vessels, and they have to make deals with the locals while still remaining a Starfleet crew. So far there’ve been traitors (two, one of whom was so traitorous she lied about being Bajoran and stole someone’s sperm to make herself pregnant and also lied about being raped), a couple food shortages, and several near disasters.
I’m not gonna start reviewing from the first ep, since I’m nearing the end of s2 now, so am gonna use this intro post to talk about things I’ve already noticed, going character by character.
1. Janeway
She’s so awesome, and I love that she’s constantly channeling Katherine Hepburn.
On a characterization level, I love that the characterizationfor her is pretty consistent in regards to what she knows; you hear right away that she’s a former science officer, and her knowledge of science is casually referenced in nearly every episode. She’s never the audience-stand-in for when someone needs to do an explanation of what a proton is or whatever, in the way I sometimes felt like Picard was. She’s a little more gentle in her leadership style than I’d like, but that’s because, I think, she’s not in a place where she can be a hard-ass.
2. Harry Kim
Uhhh why does he keep getting kidnapped? I swear, he’s just like Mary Anne from Gilligan’s Island. He dies or gets kidnapped like every other episode.
3. B’Elanna
I’m glad she’s mixed, I guess it’s interesting that they did an ep about that, but seriously, if she hooks up with Tom Paris I’ll scream. He’s such a jerk AND responded in the exact wrong way in “Faces” when she was confiding in him about her childhood as the only person of Klingon descent in her colony when he was all, YAY you’re human now, YAY! after she’d been split into her two ethnicities. There’s, uh, also a lot to say about that as a plot line. Besides the racefail, there’s some great stuff re: her bonding with Janeway over SCIENCE! and her loyalty/personal integrity. I really dig her.
4. Chakotay
I know some people criticize the actor for being so wooden, but seriously, his lines suck, every time he does something “native” there’s a magic flute playing so you KNOW he’s being MAGICALLY INDIAN, and yeah. I’d phone it in too.
5. Tuvok
Oh, I love Tuvok, and how you can tell he’s five seconds from cutting EVERYONE ON THIS SHIP.
I especially liked “Innocence,” and the chance to see him not just as a Vulcan but as a Vulcan parent. It was especially satisfying to me because I keep telling people that Vulcans are really passionate people who use meditation to get along with all the other species (who are super annoying in close quarters).
6. Kes
Look, I know she keeps mentioning she’s just two, but are her years even the same as human years? And why would her age in human years even matter? What the shit. Either she’s practically a child in which case it’s skeevy that Neelix and her are boning, OR her species has a different definition of adulthood that everyone else should step off and respect. Everyone being like KES YOU’RE A CHILD would be as annoying as people going TUVOK YOU’RE ANCIENT because he’s damn near 200, and it’s weirdly infantilizing. I’m a little annoyed at how flat the actress’ voice is. I suspect this is a director decision, because even when she’s mad she uses dulcet tones, and her voice makes me think of what Jessica Alba said about director instructions to conventionally pretty actresses, and how she was sometimes told to not show emotions because it made her face ugly.
7 & 8. Neelix and Tom Paris
They bore me, but at least Neelix is funny.
9. The Doctor
He, Tuvok, and B’Elanna are the least annoying characters. If there could be an ep where they’re all vaguely annoyed at each other while actually making the ship GO without interferance from the Quizon, Tom Paris, or Neelix, and Harry could avoid getting kidnapped… well! Janeway could take a break in the Holodeck.
Next Monday, I’ll post a review of ST:V s3x1, which is called “The Basics: Part II.” The series is on Netflix if you want to watch along!
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Hm…I remember Janeway taking a lot of breaks in the holodeck. Maybe there wasn’t so much holodeck in the early seasons. I think I watched it pretty regularly after season 4, when we got Sky.
I think this program was my first exposure to that weird “magical indian” trope.
I.A. Scott(Quote) (Reply)
I last watched this during my teen years, too, and to this day I remember how I loathed Paris’s smarmy act. Of course, he was the golden boy that (presumably) male viewers were supposed to identify with.
JT(Quote) (Reply)
I.A. Scott,
So far she’s only taken two — the first to establish she’s got a novel she’s working on, and the second because the Doctor ordered her to because she needed a break. Then there were aliens, so no break for Janeway. No one ever cares that Tuvok needs a break.
JT,
I know! And it’s SO ANNOYING because he’s a JERK.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Wait, Jessica Alba got told what? I have no context for that comment; can you point me at a reference someplace?
Havoc(Quote) (Reply)
Yeah, it was in a LoGI last year of an interview she did on Fantastic Four. I’ll try to find a link.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Maria
Tuvok is definitely the ship’s rock. I think its a really long wait before you see any Tuvok personal time, and even then it always seemed to be interrupted by other people.
Also: Ugh, Paris. What a git. Not even a git that’s fun to watch. Some of the Paris-heavy episodes still make me cringe to think about.
I.A. Scott(Quote) (Reply)
I’m afraid I just couldn’t get into Voyager.
I felt like they decided that the Next Gen cast was getting too expensive so they decided to recast the whole thing with cheaper talent and keep telling the same stories. The premise of the show was initially different but they quickly abandoned the “lost in space” angle and just told lots of stories about what everyone thought of the space wedgie of the week. It was a *very* rare Voyager episode that couldn’t have happened on TNG.
The fact that Deep Space 9 was putting out new episodes concurrently for most of Voyager’s run just made Voyager look a little limp in comparison. Avery Brooks, Nana Visitor, Rene Auberjonois and company were just so much more fun to watch than Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, and the rest of Voyager’s cast were.
But then I might be a bit blinded by my fannish preferences.
Jhamin(Quote) (Reply)
Jhamin, I’m gonna be honest and say I don’t care that you couldn’t get into Voyager. Your dislike of the show because of your like of another show is actually irrelevant to this thread and is a derail. I suggest you read:
http://thehathorlegacy.com/activism-101-beware-false-allies/ –> particularly the part about eyeballs
This is one of the reasons it can be hard to be enthusiastic about doing ep recaps.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
I watched Voyager and its predecessors on and off, and remember being hot-and-cold about it. Some good stuff, some “what the hell were the writers smoking”. Definitely count me in as another anti-fan of Tom Paris. B’Elanna and Tuvok were the ones I like best of the bunch.
I *would* be curious about your opinion on “Faces”. It’s been a while, but I remember having the distinct impression that we were supposed to identify with the human half as the “real one” and the Klingon as “other”. That bugged me, and the admission that the Klingon half is needed didn’t make it much better. It felt like a predictable, easy way out seeing as how we viewers are human. Did you share that impression, and if so, did it play into the “racefail”?
Korva(Quote) (Reply)
Korva,
Heh. There were a couple bits of fail:
1. B’Elanna’s Klingon (non-human/Othered) half gives her strength/anger/the ability to survive/the willingness to use sex as a tool. It’s animalistic, irrational and untrustworthy
2. B’Elanna’s human half (the “normal”) is able to express complex emotions/reason/plan an escape/ is appropriately feminine/physically weak. It’s femme, desireable, and human.
3. Personality traits –> race traits.
4. Tom Paris’ response to her sadness over her father’s abandonment as being sympathetic — he basically snarked someone talking about their struggle coming to terms with their mixed race identity, and this is sexy WHY?
————
While B’Elanna realizes she needs “both halves” to survive/escape/be herself, it’s still a really WEIRD plot. PLUS, even though people are trying to exploit her body for medical purposes comes up again in s2, it’s one of those things that’s neither historicized (like, there’s a long history of WOC getting exploited for medical experiments) or acknowledged as more than B’Elanna being irrational and a little selfish.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Also, speaking of hair politics… B’Elanna’s Klingon self has nappy hair, and her human self has straight. If the third pic in blue here (http://www.startrek.com/database_article/torres#1) is what her hair looks like when she hasn’t “done” it, why does one half of her look like it’s just gotten a fresh relaxer, and the other gloriously frizzy? Particularly since it’s not like her Klingon on half was her BLACK half — she’s afro-Latina/Klingon, so…. yeah.
Here’s the other post where hair came up:
http://thehathorlegacy.com/hathor-watch-along-firefly-s1-ep7-jaynestown/
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Oh my, it’s ages since I watched Voyager. The only ST Series that get frequent re-runs here are TOS and TNG, while occasional episodes of VOY and DS9 are airing on obscure time slots like 2 – 5 a.m. Thankfully we have DS9 on DVD now and it was worth every single cent!
Anyway, I remember loving the shit out of VOY as a teenager. The first seasons very always a bit so-and-so as usual (it’s like an universal law that ST writers always need at least a season or two to get the characters right) but they got some nice seasons later on.
I really liked Janeway (my bf hates her guts, but as of now I will blame awkward dubbing for that). I don’t know why but I found Kes really irritating. Torres (yay for being bi-racial) kinda grew on me but — wait are we allowed to write spoilery rants here? XD
Sabrina(Quote) (Reply)
Spoilers are okay!
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Hi guys! Guess what’s completely irrelevant to a discussion of a particular show? Answer: your negative feelings about that show. Your negative feelings are not a critical assessment. Basically, you are just jumping into a discussion to tell us about your feelings. Your feelings about the show under discussion may seem more relevant than your feelings about, say, Siamese cats, but they’re really kind of not (unless of course they come with some actual critical assessment about bigotry issues within the show).
Do we need a new comment rule about this? I’m not sure anyone ever reads them, anyway.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Maria,
Is this ep based on the one where Kirk gets split into an animal Kirk and a civilized Kirk, and the animal Kirk tries to rape Rand while the civilized Kirk is completely indecisive and wishy-washy? Or is there another ep where something similar happens (can’t recall anything else where someone’s split that way, but I didn’t see all of TNG)? Because it sounds like a rehash of the Kirk ep without any thoughts as to what made that episode so VERY VERY WRONG, and how much it didn’t help for them to make the split between her Klingon and human selves, especially with the hair implications.
(We talked about that one starting here. http://thehathorlegacy.com/a-look-back-at-the-original-star-trek-series/#comment-94377, if anyone’s curious)
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Alright, just wanted to ask, cause it’s that specific point about Torres and Paris: Yes they do hook up and I didn’t like it one bit. What the hell did she saw in that guy?!? I’m so not a fan for their relationship. Not a fan of Paris in general, too. It doesn’t help that his character was initially supposed to be that stupid dudebro pilot that got one of his and Wesley’s friends killed in TNG. They changed the name and a few bits of his past but kept the actor. So yeah…
Regarding the other male characters: I hated that Harry basically was the damsel-in-distress and Chakotay’s kitschy shamanism thing. I also like Tuvok and how he always looked like he wanted to punch all the annoying people around him – particularly Neelix. Depending on the episode I’d totally cheer him on, haha. Last but not least I loved the Doctor – he was always fun to watch. I approve of your Doctor/Tuvok/Torres episode suggestion!
Looking forward to your VOY articles. (I really need to re-watch the show!)
Sabrina(Quote) (Reply)
@Jenn
I actually don’t know — it might be a call-back to it, which is super depressing.
The actress is great tho — you can tell that Roxann Dawson is really doing the best she can with such shitty lines.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Maria:
Yeah it was a weird plot to say the least. Your points 1 and 2 are a good description of what bugged me too. And it didn’t help that, despite the acknowledgement of “needing” the Klingon half, the last scene I remember from that episode is human-B’Elanna i.e. “the real B’Elanna” wistfully touching her smooth forehead for the last time before she gets “the other” put back into her.
Jennifer Kesler:
The similarities between these two episodes never occurred to me before, but now that you mention it, I remember that ugly old piece of crap too. According to the Memory Alpha wiki, they didn’t want to make “Faces” too much like “The Enemy Within” but the “weak POV character realizing they need their scary other half” theme is much the same at least.
Korva(Quote) (Reply)
Janeway’s leadership style may be relatively gentle, but one of the things I love about the show is that there’s never any doubt that she’s the one in charge – Mulgrew seems to radiate an easy, natural authority. Voyager was one of the few things I watched religiously as a teenager, and the presence of a strong female leader (and a badass female engineer) was probably the main reason.
Another major reason was Tim Russ and the emotional range he manages to put across even though he’s playing a Vulcan. Especially in the relationship between Tuvok and Neelix, which provides a lot of funny moments and some very touching ones, especially late in the series.
Lavode(Quote) (Reply)
Interesting that you compared Voyager favourably to Babylon 5. B5 was the nail in the coffin on watching Star Trek franchise shows for me. It told an unfolding story with some moral greyness rather than resetting everything at the end of each episode, the ST:NG formula.
I really disliked Voyager for one annoying aspect of it’s ‘diversity’. The original series has people from different Earth cultures, but it seemed that on Voyager, even the aliens were some variety of USAmerican, as if that was the only Earth culture than existed. It seemed very narrow and culturally imperialistic to me.
Merryn(Quote) (Reply)
@Merryn
Yeah, I feel like I can find moral greyness, savior-plotlines, and white guys as heroes in a lot of SF/F. But a WOC playing a mixed race engineer on a ship captained by a woman who isn’t a power-hungry lesbian that believes in torturing prisoners? Yeah… This is probably one of the reasons that I still really dig Dark Angel, even tho the acting isn’t the best. It’s just really refreshing to see a POC as a major part of an ensemble cast with her own stories as episode A plots.
I’d say a lot of the cultural imperialism probably comes from it being more like a space Western… they’re constantly having to circle the wagons to protect from those blood thirsty
IndiansQuizonMaria(Quote) (Reply)
@Merryn
Speaking of USAmerican stuff… I wonder if it’s not that the show only shows USAmerican aliens, but instead Aliens/Others where a USAmerican perspective is normalized? Because I feel like the Ocampa and a few of the other alien species they encountered are built using US stereotypes about the Oriental Other.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Maria,
Oh, Roxanne Dawson did a great job!
Ah, you knew how to look it up, LOL! The two eps ARE different in many ways, but the idea that Kirk splits into a beast and a wimp is so not improved by having B’Elanna make a similar split, with the Klingon parts being more beastly, and those parts being coded partly to the actress’ African heritage. I mean, if anything, that’s an uglier message than The Enemy Within, which is what bothers me.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
“Janeway’s leadership style may be relatively gentle, but one of the things I love about the show is that there’s never any doubt that she’s the one in charge”
Really? Because I remember watching the first ep and being very annoyed that we finally get a female captain and they immediately set her up so that she is sharing command in a way none of the male captains had to. Possibly I need to rewatch it? I think the only time I have was when it first aired. :p
Part of the problem though is that we need more female captains. (and more diverse captains overall) When you only have one female captain you only get one chance to do a great female captain. And since different people will have different expectations of of what makes a great female captain, you will always have people that are annoyed and disappointed rather than just “oh, well, not my cup of tea” or “she’s not my favorite but she’s still good.” I think there was a lot of awesomeness in Janeway that I totally missed because I was so. very. excited. to finally get a female captain…so when Janeway (and the set-up of Voyager) did not at all match what I had been building up inside my head, it made them hard to watch.
jennygadget(Quote) (Reply)
Jennifer Kesler,
There are differences, yeah, and I’m not sure which episode bugs me worse. One notable difference is the sexuality aspect. Other-Kirk, as a man, “of course” was sexually violent. Other-B’Elanna, as a woman, “of course” was a sexual object and seductress (even if she didn’t really mean it and only used it as a trick to free herself). Plus the matter of B’Elanna being deliberately imprisoned and victimized to split her combined with what Maria said about medical experiments inflicted on people of color in the real world, while Kirk’s split was an accident and he was always a free agent in his episode.
Both send some really ugly messages. I guess “The Enemy Within” was just more in-your-face about it with the whole “you can’t be anything but a useless wimp if part of you isn’t a raving, rampaging rapist” BS. The problems with “Faces” seem less blatant at a casual glance (because “we” are used to women sexualized and victimized, and “everyone knows what Klingons are like”, plus “they’re not even real so how can it be racism”, and after all the two B’Elannas appreciate each other in the end, etc.), but maybe that is what in fact makes it the worse of the two.
Korva(Quote) (Reply)
Maria,
The character you mention is a classic example of what I mean. She’s half Klingon, but her human half is USAmerican. We also have native USAmerican, Asian USAmerican (rather than just plain Asian), etc. Everyone human seems to be USAmerican, which I saw as a huge step backwards from the original series.
Ivanova of B5 may have been white, but was also a Russian Jew. I agree there should have been more female characters on B5, and more non-white faces, but I don’t think different shades of Americans is really an improvement.
Merryn(Quote) (Reply)
jennygadget,
I actually agree with you (http://thehathorlegacy.com/chakotay-is-my-co-pilot/). It felt to me like what they did when Carter became the leader of SG-1 – it turned into a democracy where they decided as a team what they would do instead of Carter being the boss, like O’Neill had been. I suspect Hollywood was terrified to show a woman giving orders to a man, so they felt they needed to mitigate it somehow.
I do think, however, that Kate Mulgrew puts across some serious authority that could almost make you forget whatever message the people making the show are trying to put across, and I appreciate her for it.
Korva,
Yeah, that sums up exactly what’s worrying about Faces. Also, it just hit me that the title sort of reduces the whole thing to a stereotype of female vanity. Kirk is fighting an “enemy” within himself, valiantly and heroically, like leading men do. B’elanna is dealing with two different faces, and we know how much those gals worry about their faces! /eyeroll
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Jennifer Kesler,
You know, I like the title Faces. I like the implication that the two beings were both expressions of one whole. I guess in a way this title is accurate, since it reflects the writers’ standards of B’lanna as a (white) Woman and a racialized Other.
I liked Voyager when it came out (I think I was too young when DS9 premiered to get into it), and I liked TNG better than TOS when I saw them later, but I think the modern Treks have done a consistently shitty job of pushing the edge or having any sort of progressive politics in their writing. People applaud TOS but at this point the four successive series should have been building on that base, not simply telling the same safe stories or telling new one they must know are more racist than what came before.
To be fair Voyager did have a female lead and a person of color 2nd-in-command, something Enterprise didn’t even attempt to do (gods know we can’t have two women commanders in a row), and it was the 90s. Am I judging a little too harshly here? It sounds like there’s awesome but only if you pick it out of the bad parts.
Shaun(Quote) (Reply)
I watched Voyager when I was ten and I don’t think I remembered his first name the whole time (and forgot his surname afterwards). The male lead that always stuck with me was the Doctor because he was rude and funny and he had this cool thing of being a hologram despite being a nerdy wuss, everyone needed him (not that I remember consciously picking up the fourth one). And he always did a good job and people could rely on him and I don’t remember him ever having to heroically thump someone to do it. There should be more Doctors and less Parises because the Doctor’s more interesting and a better example of a good man.
(The other character who I remembered was Janeway because she was The Boss and I always remembered a strong sense of The Boss from her. She hit all the right Boss notes that TV had trained me to accept.)
Charles RB(Quote) (Reply)
jennygadget,
Hm. That didn’t bother me, since Chakotay nearly always defers to Janeway even when he thinks she’s wrong (or at least he doesn’t question her decisions in front of the others). But what I mean is really the way she carries herself – in some shows I’ve seen, female characters who are supposed to be leaders tend to keep looking at their male subordinates as if to ask for permission or approval when making a decision or giving orders. I don’t know if it’s because of the actors involved or the direction or what, but it doesn’t seem to happen as much on Voyager.
Definitely agree that there should be more female captains.
Lavode(Quote) (Reply)
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