Amph To Boldly Trek Where Many Geeks Have Gone Before- Star Trek VIII: First Contact

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VOY 222: Innocence
-Premise: Tuvok is trapped on a moon with a group of alien children who are disappearing, one by one.

-T2Q Comments: Oh, for the love of- that's not even a forehead ridge appliance- they just slapped a sticker on that girls' forehead!

The reaction to the children/insight into Tuvok's fatherhood is quite good, but the kids are pretty blah so far. Never thought I'd see/hear a Vulcan sing (Nimoy singing that BIlbo Baggins doesn't count ). Benjamin Button people twist only kinda works- it's not built up to and creates a few "why didn't the ambassador tell them?" questions that would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Average.

Trivia: The search for polyferranide deposits began back in Tattoo.


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DS9 419: Hard Time
-Premise: Convicted of espionage, Miles O'Brien is given the memories of twenty years in prison in a matter of hours. Returning to DS9, O'Brien finds he cannot shrug the memory of his awful experience or rid himself of the guilt he feels over the death of his cellmate.

-T2Q Comments: Miles crazy aged hair looks ridiculous... old age makeup fails the franchise yet again. Seems like Miles should call up Picard and ask him about dealing with the memories of a false lifetime... but, seriously, how would he be fit for duty at all in the immediate future? He'd have to remember tech stuff he hadn't thought about or worked on for 2 decades.

Ok, criticism retracted- they're actually dealing with that in the story. This I like.

Yeah, you knock those obviously-empty containers over, Miles. Good Episode, But Not Necessarily Essential (but recommended!).

Trivia: Story for this episode is by Daniel Keys Moran (same author as the various Boba Fett tales) and was originally pitched during the 1st season but took several attempts by Robert Wolfe, Piller and Behr to get it made. Hard Time takes the original pitch and adds the killed-cellmate angle from an unproduced pitch that would have shown Ensign Jaxa (from The First Duty and Lower Decks) was still alive and had been in a Cardassian prison. Actress Margot Rose appears in both this episode and TNG's The Inner Light. One of the annual "O'Brien-Must-Suffer" episodes.



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DS9 420: Shattered Mirror
-Premise: Professor Jennifer Sisko uses Jake to lure Sisko to the "mirror universe" to help the rebels build another starship Defiant.

-T2Q Comments: "I imagine that's why you don't have any fiends." "Look whose talking."

I wonder what Sherry Palmer thinks about Sisko visiting the AU version of his dead wife.

Alt-Garrak, huzzah! Alt-Worf, huh, hadn't thought about his inclusion having an impact on the Mirrorverse.

"You are attempting to shift the blame away from yourself!"
"Am I succeeding?"

"Spoken like a Klingon!"
"I'm trying..."

Neat shot- essentially Defiant in drydock, something we've never seen before.

"But at least..what?"
"But at least I could please her from time to time."
"You...are not my type."
"I never said I was."

This whole chase around DS9 battle is really quite fun. I suppose this sequence shall hereby be kno

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DS9 421: The Muse
-Premise: A mysterious woman helps Jake write a novel; Lwaxana Troi, pregnant with a son, asks Odo to help her escape her husband.

-T2Q Comments: That transport is whipping around the station pretty fast- surely there's some kind of speed regulation when being that close to the station? (outside of battle, obviously).

Mama Troi returns...with an awfully cliche cliffhanger for the teaser "I'm pregnant", plus it's paired with a goofyily exagerated expression of reaction by Odo; and the goofy expression carriers over as the scenes picks up- did no one tell the actor to dial it down?

The stuff with the titular Muse is interesting, Mama Troi's plight, not so much (I even forgot she got married, quite frankly), however, tying it back to the her lost child from TNG: Dark Page is an interesting connection. Briefly touches on Odo/Kira, and has some nice symbolism throwing back to the first Odo/Mama Troi episode where he had to rest in her lap, now she in his.

As a bit of meta observation, the Muse speaks of writing in a stream of conciousness and then editing later- not much unlike what I do with this episode viewing project, ha.

That's not Evilyn, is it? It is! I'd recognize Meg Foster's eyes anywhere.

So her husband is a Technomage and a Klingon. Am I the only one to notice that Jake doesn't take any of the pages he's just written with him? If I was writing what I thought to be my best work, i wouldn't just leave them laying around in a relative strangers' room.

That's Lyta/Patricia Tallman as the nurse. And another magic energyball lifeform that can pass through walls and travel through space.

So, I'm mixed on this one- it's ultimately handled competently but the whole marriage plotline I don't care for and it makes the more interesting Muse plotline feel like more of a distraction that forces in an obligatory "we need more scifi stuff here" moment and combines it with a cliched ending- I suppose I wish they could have focused more of the episode on that and the nature of creativity and inspiration and it would have been more satisfying. Average.

Trivia: Originally titled "Playing House". The pitch for this episode came from Majel. The script meeting took twice as long as even a problematic script would and was the longest in the entire seven year run of DS9. Producers and crew were all unhappy with the episode, citing script problems and directorial problems- though Meg Foster was universally praised.

Among those the Muse mentions she's inspired are an english poet named John Keats, a BC Roman poet named Catullus and the alien Tarbolde- one poem of whose was quoted by Gary Mitchell in Where No Man Has Gone Before. The novel Jake begins writing is "Anslem", which also appeared in The Visitor. Jake is reading a Hortio Hornblower novel in this episode- the same novel he read in The Visitor. One of the ambassadors that boards the station early on was played by John Paul Lone, who won the guest spot for designing the makeup of the Rasiinian species. This is Majel Barrett's last appearance as Lwaxana Troi in Star Trek and her final on-screen Star Trek appearance.


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VOY: 223: The Thaw
-Premise: The crew attempts to rescue three aliens in stasis from a bizarre computer program that is based on fear.

-T2Q Comments: I quite like the initial premise to this one so far- though once again we have a way too human forehead rac

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VOY 224: Tuvix
-Premise: After a transporter malfunction, Tuvok and Neelix are merged into a single being. In the search for a way to restore them to their original forms, a moral dilemma is faced as the new being does not want to be terminated.

-T2Q Comments: Dammit, Neelix is annoying. When the JJ reboot of Voyager happens 40 years from now, can we please leave him behind? Oh god...this premise does not bode well...

So far my initial fears, despite the kinda stupid premise, haven't played out- Tuvix is much more preferable to Neelix. The one flaw here in trying to present this merged condition as untreatable/irreversible (just like my rain coat!) doesn't fit with the rest of the franchise undoing ridiculous amounts of genetic mutations and changes- they were able to undo Janeway and Paris turning into lizards, and who knows how many other types of changes that happened on TNG, yet can't undo a humanoid to humanoid change?

"With a primitive imaging technology called x-rays", wow, been a while since we have had some of that we-are-future-uber mentality expressed- surely x-rays have been used before in the franchise?

Tuvix has Paris slow to impluse yet we still see warp star straks outside Janeway's window in the next shot. That isotope sure does spread quickly- think they'd have to wait a bit for it to permeate the whole body.

Epilogue, you ****ers, epilogue! You getting as bad a SG-1 is with that! Maybe even worse.

So, yeah, that ended up being a rather good episode (but then, Neelix was technically not in it at all, so that certainly helps ) managing to overcome the sillier setup by the time it becomes more about the execution debate, though it may have been stronger if I didn't dislike Neelix as much- thus making the choice harder.

Also, we never get any relvance or elaboration on why Tuvok was "being too much like himself" at the start, which would have seemed relevant to me- at the very least, since that wasn't relevant to the episode (the episode could have started aboard ship trying to beam them up) they could have dropped that opening scene entirely and used the runtime to include an epilogue scene with everyone dealing with the experience (Kess & Neelix in particular, though Tuvok and Kess and Tuvok and Janeway would have been nice too- although I could understand wanting to leave Janeway where she was).

Good Episode But Not Necessarily Essential.

Trivia: According to an unauthorized reference book, this episode was the most debated of Voyager's first 5 seasons, regarding Janewya's decision to separate Tuvix. While writing an episode in Enterprise's 3rd season, Similitude, Manny Coto strived to avoid making it too similar to this episode.


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VOY 225: Resolutions
-Premise: Voyager is forced to abandon Captain Janeway and Chakotay when they are infected with a terminal illness. Tuvok leads Voyager on a mission to find a cure.

-T2Q Comments: it's interesting that Harry stays behind after Tuvok dismisses everyone...no explanation though. The farewell speech is nice (especially Tuvok's closing line) but it kinda feels hollow in the same way the conversations about Paris's departure from Voyager were- we know it's not for real/permanent so it loses impact and takes away from any such speeches that might need to be delivered for real in the future. The short of it is: don't give a goodbye speech unless they are actually leaving (or are at least departing for multiple episodes).

I do like how the previous Vidian stories are being factored into events here-the destruction of a ship, Torres's potential relevance to the Phage, etc. Also, shouldn't Tuvok be wearing red now? Tuvok's change of heart isn't fully convincing to me, but it works well enough- though

EW has before-and-after video of Farpoint's ending.

It's...actually quite impressive. I don't recall Farpoint's old material looking quite that bad, but the jellyfish effects differences are stunning.

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DS9 426: Broken Link (SEASON FINALE)
-Premise: Odo is plagued by an unknown ailment that threatens to kill him. Meanwhile, the Federation and the Klingon Empire move closer to war.

-T2Q Comments: Garrak, huzzah!

"What's wrong?" "I've been bluescreened!"

Ah, we return to Gowron and his baby blues and the Klingon plot that started the season. Maybe the pregnancy sneezes are a consequence of those nose ridges, ha. This purple haired chick... I think they were trying too hard (though apparenly she's shown up before, just never named until now).

"Someone is requesting permission to come onboard."
"Who is it?"
"...Garrak."
"Tell him the ship is off limits to Cardassian spys."

Offsetting shot of the Defiant surrounded by so many Jem'Hadar ships. The female Changeling looks different this time around. That warp flight shot of the Defiant being escorted by the Jem'Hadar ships is quite lovely- it's not the type of shot we've really had in Trek before, and is more B5-esque than anything else.

That's... a lot of Changelings. you know, i actually remember this scene too, so i must have tuned in for this one. The stone skipping moment is great, ha!

"Sabotage, assaulting a Federation officer, attempting to incite war between the Federation and the Dominion.."
"Yes- but my heart was in the right place."

I don''t remember the ending though, so it's an interesting chunk of memory at play here. Definitely Essential.

Trivia: Chalan Aroya was originally written to be a recurring character as a love interest for Odo for the 5th season but the producers felt she wasn't right for Odo and so abandoned that notion.


Up next: VOY 226/301: Basics, Parts I & II.


The Babylon Project Log:

-Space stations ending with a numerical designation that are of commerce ports in nature (prominently featuring a casino area), near a giant swirling blue vortex passageway (wormhole/jumpgate) used for travel and a location of advanced creation (prophet temple/Great Machine).
-Hard-edged female second in command, pessimistic, sarcastic security chief. somewhat ethnic doctor.
-Characters named Dukat/Dukhat
-A spiritual race recently coming free of occupation by a more militaristic civilization, the conflict of which led the spiritual race to become more militant themselves.
-Gambler conman (Quark/Londo) has somewhat fluctuating antagonistic friendship with hard-edged chief of security (Odo/Garabaldi).
-Characters played by Julie Caitlin Brown have a long-standing grudge against a notorious murderer who has prolonged their life at the expense of others through scientific experimentation (Rao Vantika/Jha'dur "Deathwalker").
-The term "Changeling" has significance in relation to early parts of both series (the B5 pilot "the Gathering" and DS9's "Vortex" & beyond), though applied to different elements (technology versus a species).
-A main character slowly constructs a device (chrysalis/clock) piece of piece in their quarters while conversing with a subordinate .
-A main character often referred to as Chief (Miles/Garibaldi) has a recurring assistant (Neela/garibaldi's Aide) who is a plant by another faction that attempts to bring about political change by assassinating a prominent rival leader (Bariel/Santiago) in the first season finale so that one of their faction may replace him (Adami/Clark). Their plot is uncovered by the Chief character.
-The Circle/Homeguard Bajoran for Bajorans, vandalism with a symbol; subdues and brands an alien on the middle of the forehead with their logo
-Second Season opens with a command officer (Sinclair/Kira) being reassigned from the station to be among the religious order of a species heavily involved with the operation of the station, partly due to prophecy
-A near-human alien race has their hair up in a fan-style to represent social status.
-A character played by Julia Nickson (Catherine/Cassandra) romances (or attempts to romance) the commander of the station (Sinclair/Sisko)

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VOY 426: Basics, Part I (SEASON FINALE)
-Premise: On a mission to rescue Chakotay's son from Maje Culluh, Voyager is captured by the Kazon-Nistrim in a sneak attack, the crew taken hostage, and Paris is believed to be dead.

-T2Q Comments: Yay! Suder! (following up from Meld). Also the return of Seska...and maybe the death of Seksa, offscreen at that?

The almost casual combat with the Kazon Raiders is almost comical in a "swatting a flies" type of way.

"It feels like we're being pecked to death by ducks." ::spit-take:: Not nibbled to death by cats? (check the date on episodes aired)

"Hold your fire, Mr Tuvok- they may have torpedos to waste, we don't" well, the numbers will see about that, but if they have such torpedos, maybe it;d be a good idea to try to acquire some of those eventually?

The Doctor's unique combat situation is pretty funny, actually. Three torpedoes fired.

Ugh, tearing off the toenail. "Dispersal pattern sierra" of torpedos fired.

i dunno, Paris, Mr shuttle pilot, but maybe you shoulda jumped to warp a wee bit quicker there? this ain't star wars, mass shadows and indictors (and any technobabble substitute Trek would care to interject) aren't an issue.

Self-destruct attempt #3. hmm, so maybe Nemesis wasn't being as original as I thought with the self-destruct aversion, though it's set up differently here so it still has a different impact, emotionally and tactically.

They give Cullah a brief speech to merge their Klingon-lite nature with the oh-so-appealig and-so-popular-with-fans misogyny of the Ferengi and how they treat their woman. Bravo.

"Why is it so dark in here? Someonebody turn on the lights!" That actually made me laugh, though I don't recall Kazon ships being all that well lit either. The sky really cleared up pretty quickly there, didn't it? it was dark and cloud covered, and now it';s just a nice blue sky.

The collecting of the comm badges is a nice touch... come to think of it, they need to have a bad guy go after the crew by going after those badges. Eventually Voyager will run out or have to waste resources making more... but in the meantime they lack personal communications and the ability to track and transport crew.

Actually a rather great line by Cullah- "A fitting end for a people who would not share their technology. Let's see if you manage to survive without it." ...although taking away from that line is the observation that, ya know, you could just kill them.

This is obviously the culmination of several season 2 threads, as well as some threads from season 1, and it at least treats the Kazon in the way that they are able to be a threat (through their numbers and inside knowledge via Seska) even if the Kazon themselves don't physically project themselves as a threat. Definitely Essential.

Trivia: This is the first two-parter for Voyager. Departing executive producer Michael Piller aimed to provide this series with a 2nd season coda with the excitement of his Best of Both Worlds cliffhanger through this episode. He was also the one who pushed for the Kazon to be the enemy who took the ship, instead of a new race. The title "Basics", besides reflecting the "back to basics" situation for the crew, was also meant to reflect Piller's final message to the franchise and what he learned from working with Riddenberry.

The director felt that the baby as an excuse to get them on the planet was not well thought out as a plot device. Mulgrew felt the episode should have been more action oriented and the crew portrayed as more cautious and have had more control on their part. Tim Russ said they had to make some changes on the set to make the episodes work as well as they did.

When Cullah strikes Janeway, Mulgrew jokingly commented

Voyager Season 2 Breakdown:

Definitely Essential:
120/201: The 37's
210: Cold Fire
211: Maneuvers
218/214: Death Wish
214/215: Alliances
216/217: Meld
220: Investigations
226: Basics, Part I

Potentially Essential, But Not Necessarily Good:
118/204: Elogium
119/206: Twisted
219: Lifesigns
225: Resolutions

Good Episodes, But Not Necessarily Essential:
117/203: Projections
202: Initiations
208: Persistence of Vision
212: Resistance
213: Prototype
217/218: Dreadnought
221: Deadlock
223: The Thaw
224: Tuvix

Average Episodes:
205: Non Sequitur
207: Parturition
209: Tattoo
222: Innocence

Ok Episodes, But Not Necessarily Essential:
(none)

Forgettable:
(none)

Trash:
215/216: Threshold


This was a curious season. They've started to abandon the "next-next generation" angle from Season 1 but also started to avoid stories that should have been in the Alpha Quadrant but were out of place in the Delta (though, ironically, while introducing a lot of Alpha Quadrant-related elements like Cardassians and Cardassian dreadnaughts). At the same time they got pretty lazy with the alien makeup.

They've told some great standalone stories (The Thaw and Tuvix being notable towards the end) and some franchise lows (Threshold). They made the Vidians compelling enemies and tried to salvage the Kazon like DS9 did with the Ferengi, but weren't very successful- it's just really hard to get past their ridiculous hair, water-Klingons/Klingons-lite vibe and silly Oompa Loompa appearance.

This season, much more than the first, does show that they still weren't sure what they wanted the show to be. They had some clear opportunities to take the show in new directions that would have been absolutely amazing (Alliances' Fedeation-building elements) but they weren't confident enough to break pattern and pursue it, so they backpedaled.

On the other hand, they did a lot of good things in the season (Seska, Suder & the spy come to mind), but mishandled/blew them either because of a lack of confidence in the concepts or the apathy and idiotic decisions of certain producers. Seska gets offed sloppily, Suder gets offed because Taylor had no interest in further developing a good character and the spy plotline gets mishandled because the producers saw it as something distracting from their individual episodes when in fact it was actually making the show (and, by association, the producers) seem much more competent than it actually was, apparently.

On the other hand, the producers get credit for seeing that certain things like the Jazon clearly weren't working (despite their best efforts) and pushing for something of a clean break between Seaosn 2 and 3. And while that allowd them to sweep away the Kazon and move to more promising waters, elements that actually were working, like the Vidians, got swept out along with them. Baby with the bath water-Klingons and all that. I can't help but wonder if the aforesuggested lack of confidence contributed to that overcompensation.

On the upside, they clearly understood some of the non-Nelix characters by this point and at least gave the impression they had some ideas of what they might try to do with Chakotay.



DS9 Season 4 Breakdown:

Since so many episodes in this season are Definitely Essential, it's easier to just list the ones that aren't...

Potentially Essential, But Not Necessarily Good:
410: Our Man Bashir
416: Bar Association
425: Body Parts

Good Episode, But Not Necessarily Essential:
406: Rejoined
417: Accession
418: Rules of Engagement
419: Hard Time

Average:
421: The Muse

There's not a lot to say, really- this season was great. Way of the Warrior is officially one of the best Trek "movies" and we just got some badass episodes from this season, as well as some great quiet ones like The Quickening. And Dukat and Garrak stuff is always welcome.

The Homefront two parter may not have been entirely successful, though- but it still had some great components and really started to clearly present the series "it's easy to

A series of before and after animated gifs

Just hit the "next" links to scroll through them. Comparison shots of screens from the BDs to the DVDs, albeit it in animated gif quality restructions- still, there are some noticeable improvements.

That holodeck shot is a REAL eye opening stunner. Also we're definitely seeing some FX replacements (the D vs Klingon ship to present the correct perspective) and FX error corrections (the energy beam no longer firing from the Captain's Yacht). These look fantastic.

It's the last time Voyager actually encounters them, yes. According to Memory Alpha, we see them again in an episode due to a temporal anomaly regressing to this era, and we briefly see them in a flawed recreation of Voyager down the road featuring Kazon as enslaved crew aboard Warship Voyager. But no more real-deal Kazon.


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VOY 302/307: Sacred Ground
-Premise: Kes is injured when she accidentally commits sacrilege on an alien planet; in order to save her life, Janeway must go through a mysterious ritual that challenges her faith.

-T2Q Comments: Another boring forehead ridge race. Another example of the magic seamless zipper-replacing tech of the 24th century. The "helpless" / "I do understand" moment, while not impactful, is an interesting observation at least.

Are you serious? The last twenty minutes of this episode were literally meaningless? That's worse than "it was all a dream". Seriously? WTF?

Well, at least part of the meaningless segment of the episode is relevant...

"If you can explain everything, what's left to believe in?" the explanations?

If belief is the key to surviving the biogenic field, how is it Kess could have been harmed by it in the first place, when she had no reason to doubt or hesitate, being unaware of the field's existence?

I'm not quite sure what the message or point of this episode was. It tries to be a "belief over fact" type episode, which is unTrek like, but then it reveals it's more of a "belief over fact because they won't let you scan something for no reason" type scenario, which somehow upsets Janeway, even though it shouldn't (at least, not in the way it seemingly does). Average.

Trivia: The first (in production order) of four episodes produced during the second season and intentionally held back for the 3rd season. The first episode directed by Robert Duncan McNeill. Originally, this was to be directed by Jonathan Frakes, who backed out to direct First Contact.



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VOY 303/307: False Profits
-Premise: Voyager discovers a pair of Ferengi who control the economy of a primitive world; nearby is an unstable wormhole that leads back home.

-T2Q Comments: Seeking a wormhole- the wagging dog tail analogy is actually kinda neat. You'd think for away missions like this they might come up with a more discreet slipcase for a tricorder to help mask some of the blinking bits. Also, these people look completely human- they didn't even bother with a generic noseridge.

Ah, yes, the follow-up to TNG: The Price with the Ferengi stuck in the Delta Quadrant.

"That...was beautiful." ::snort::

Naturally, Neelix would make a good Ferengi. Well, thanks for nothing Neelix, your squealing isn't helping my opinion of you. However, Neelix's reaction to the "seven years of pure profit" line kinda makes up for it.

Shame they couldn't fit in an epilogue to at least deal with the (somewhat obligatory) loss of the wormhole and let that failure as a result of their preoccupation with the Ferengi (for better or worse) sink in.

This one was kinda fun, really and does follow-up on the first significant Delta Quadrant plot element in the franchise- although The Price wasn't mandatory viewing, so we'll have this one be Potentially Essential.

Trivia: The second (in production order) of four episodes produced during the second season but intended for airing during the third.

This episode was the first episode written by a staff writer during his return from a 4 year stint in France- he had previously been a staff writer on TNG (so, fitting that a TNG writer works on a TNG sequel episode).

Arridor is played by the

I've been tempted to at times, but this does allow me to both partially recreate the experience of watching these back when they first aired and observe interesting coincidences/patterns that form both in regards to this series and in regards to the DS9/B5 comparisons (for example, awhile back when there was the episode that dealt with, essentially, death of personality, only to be followed by the Voyager episode that introduced Brad Dourif's character (who played someone on B5 that had undergone death of personality).

I also don't want to burn through DS9 too fast- I'm finally at the part in the series that's almost entirely unknown to me (minus the spoilers I've accidentally read on Memory Alpha), so I would like it to last.

It is odd, though- whenever I have to switch back to VOY from DS9, I'm often reluctant at first, since I really do want to continue DS9's arc, but then after watching a VOY episode, I sometimes do feel more compelled to continue with VOY (if it was a good episode) and have a similar strangeness going back to DS9 (though to a much lesser degree). That tends to go away very quickly though with DS9 at this point, however .

I think that shift has more to do with the different tones of the shows, but it's still an interesting effect and highlights how this is still different than the other franchises that have managed to maintain two shows at once (like Stargate, where Atlantis and SG-1 are much more cohesive in tone, despite different casts and settings).

[image=http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20050921220752/memoryalpha/en/images/1/1b/Sisko_as_a_Klingon.jpg] [image=http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111025164708/memoryalpha/en/images/4/46/Hall_of_Warriors_in_2373.jpg]
DS9 501: Apocalypse Rising
-Premise: Sisko leads a commando team into Klingon headquarters in an attempt to expose the Changeling impersonating Gowron. (Season Premiere)

-T2Q Comments: Doesn't seem like a good move to open the recap AND the teaser proper with the same shot of the station.

"I hate prototypes."

Dukat returns, along with his stolen Bird of Prey. As amusing as it is, I'm not too hot on the dressing-actors as-other-races approach... it sometimes tends to break the illusion except with similar species like Vulcan/Romulans, etc.

New shot of the station as the BOP departs... CGI station?

"This is still your fault" a bit of a meta joke referencing the realworld origin of the baby subplot I suppose?

And, ya know, they can do the cosmetic surgery to make Odo look like a Klingon... can't they humanize his face? Gowron and his baby blues returns again.

"Glory to you..." ::eyes widen beyond human capacity:: "..and your house." Yeah that's a Gowron thing right there.

Ah, at least they bring up the implications of Starfleet cosmetic surgery for Odo. So, it begins to resolve the Klingon conflict, plus has Gowron and Changelings, so we'll go with Definitely Essential.

Trivia: The primary goal of Season 5 in general, and Apocalypse Rising in particular, was to get the show back on track towards the Dominion War plotline that Season 3 had been building to before Paramount had them shake things up with the Klingon conflict plotline in Season 4. At the same time they wanted to tie the Klingon conflict into the Dominion War so as not to give the impression that Season 4 was a pointless interlude- they wanted people to know that they didn't switch horses midstream.

The decision to make Martok a Changeling instead of Gowron was done o as not to upset TNG fans- but the producers were so pleased with the actor's performance here that they decided to bring back the real Martok later on. This episode was originally concieved to be a two-parter, with the first part on Dukat's BOP and the second on the planet. Dukat's daughter was to appear in this episode, but only had one line, so it was felt there was no point filming the scene with her and Dukat.

Despite Dax's knowledge of Klingon culture, she was not part of the mission because Terry Farrell was allergic to the excessive Klngon make-up. Michael Dorn enjyed seeing his co-stars undergo the same heavy makeup that he was forced to endure for several years. Colm Meaney was so uncomfortable and complained so much that Dorn asked the producers to never put him in maeup again. On the flipside, Rene found the Klingon makeup much easier than Odo's usual makeup since it covered less of his face. Rene previously played a non-Klingon disguised as a Klingon in ST6 as Colonel West.


[image=http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071025212723/memoryalpha/en/images/e/e8/Harry_and_Tom_in_Prison.jpg]
VOY 305/303: The Chute
-Premise: Harry Kim and Tom Paris are found guilty and detained in a prison where a neural implant gradually drives the inmates mad.

-T2Q Comments: "I will not allow this ship to be boarded." again. You forgot to add "again".

These quick pans for the ship FX seem a bit...quick? cheap? Janeway blinking at the coward accusation is an interesting moment. Oddly enough, halfway into this episode, for once, Harry has been more interesting than Paris. The way the chute is framed to give this guy a Jesus halo is a curious shot.

The escape attempt is handled well, as is the reveal. Is this guy from walking dead? No, it's not that guy.... oh, he played the Minbari Ranger in Severed Dreams on B5! That's it!

Neelix's ship...have they even mentioned that since the pilot? You know, I almost feel like Harry should have been compelled to go back for that manifesto guy...in another world, this could have been a key point

[image=http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100119201942/memoryalpha/en/images/f/fd/Dathan_Alaris.jpg]
VOY 306: Remember
-Premise: B'Elanna Torres receives vivid dreams from an unknown passenger aboard Voyager.

-T2Q Comments: Senator Kelly. I get the impression that this speech was meant to be addressed to a larger audience than this... not much to say about the episode. The remembered drama plays out better than it could have, though the whole regressive/progressive thing seems a bit heavy handed and somewhat confusing in metaphor at the same time. I also think the episode would have better been served showing us the woman's reaction to these memories at the end as she received them instead of replaying the initial dream.

Though I think it's better than many of the episodes it'll share company with, I don't have much interest in rewatching this one- Average. However, Dawson does maage to play the two different characters very well and distinctly.

Trivia: The episode was meant to a parable to the Holocaust (while I can see it, however I'm not sure it's as clear a connection, though modern politics may be diluting the issue) and was originally concieved as a Troi-centric episode of TNG.

Dawson cited this as the episode she was most proud of. Braga was dissapointed by the episode, feeling he would have preferred it had been done as a TNG episode and that Schindler's List and subsequent awareness of the Holocaust had taken the edge off the epiosde's genocide story. Oters felt it worked better as a Voyager episode since having a non-sensitive like Torres made it more effective than if they had used somebody like Troi. Taylor thought the episode, alongside False Profits, was an example of episodes that didn't work.


[image=http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20050921221954/memoryalpha/en/images/a/a2/Quark_with_batleth.jpg]
DS9 503: Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places
-Premise: Worf helps Quark woo Grilka, his Klingon ex-wife.

-T2Q Comments: Mouthful of a title, ha. We return to The House of Quark ex-wife of Quark's. An actor credit came up for "Phil Morris"...oof, tough luck on that name.

"War- what is it good for? If you ask me, absolutely nothing."

On the upside they summarize The House of Quark, which makes seeing that episode less essential. I rather like this one panning shot of the Defiant's bridge, lights dimmed as the opera music plays. Odo's snarky tone is a bit over the top.

"You are an interesting man."
"I always thought so."

It actually would have been better if this "right of proclaimation" was a real thing- Quark asserting his ways instead of buying time by making up such a right as an excuse. Not sure how I feel about the Miles/Kira thing... it's kinda played for laughs slightly, but at least they're able to break it up.

"What happened to you two?"
"Well, um, if you must know..."

Well, a curious episode on three relationships there... the Quark thing is kinda amusing though nothing special, the Miles/Kira thing is awkward (though to it's credit (or, at least, to the credit of my unawareness of how this plot turns out) I found myself going "don't do it don't do it don't do it" ) but the Dax/Worf thing works.

I'm guessing the introduction of the Worf/Dax thing here elevates this to DefinitelY Essential (or, at the very least, Potentially Essential).

Trivia: First episode directed by Andrew Robinson (Garak- huzzah!). The original idea of doing a DS9 episode based on Cyrano de Bergerac was Dorn's. The episode's title is the second longest in Trek history (surpassed only by TOS's "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"). The title comes from a line in a Johnny Lee song from the 80's, with the Klingon word for "love" inserted. This is the only time a Klingon word appears in an episode title.

Despite Quark's line, the 24th Rile of Acquisition is "War is good for business". The actor Phil Morris I alluded to earlier played Thopek here- he previously appeared as a child in TOS: Miri, a cadet in ST3 and would later appear on DS9 and VOY as oth

Alright, we're back here, and I have a few reviews ready to go that I'll be posting over the next couple weeks from the backlog I've accumulated since the Temp boards went up.

A few things to note as we move forward:

-We're still working out a glitch from the move that truncated long posts, so some of my past reviews posted in this thread will be affected by that. They'll hopefully be fixed sometime soon, but until then, apologies to those joining in.

-Since we've now consolidated Amp, SFAF and JCC, previous threads in which I mirrored my project updates in contain a lot of the most recent discussions, those reactions can be found in the following threads:
--[NERRRD] Observations, rhetorical questions, and comments regarding Star Trek (Official Thread) (general Trek discussion thread from JCC)
--"You are of Bajor" A 'Trek' to 'Deep Space Nine' (SFAF forum's DS9-specific thread)
--"Set a Course For Home." Star Trek: Voyager[/URL] (SFAF forum's VOY-specific thread)
--Additional, earlier, discussions took place in the SFAF TNG and SFAF Trek movie threads as well.
-I'm still trying to find an appropriate formatting with the new boards, so there might be fewer images linked to for each review, since they're all full size. It won't be as neat and pretty as it used to be, but oh well.

To reduce redundancy, I'll be continuing updates in this thread only from now on, as this was the originating thread for this project. And now, onto the update!



DS9 505/506: Trials and Tribble-ations
-Premise: When Temporal Investigations arrives on Deep Space 9, Sisko recounts how he and the crew of the Defiant traveled back in time to the 23rd century to prevent the assassination of Captain James T. Kirk during the original Enterprise's mission to Space Station K-7.







-T2Q Comments: "So you're not contending that it was a pre-destination paradox?"
"A time loop- that you were meant to go back into the past."
"No."
"Good."
"We hate those."

Well, till now, I've never really put any thought into how a Klingon smells. Not gonna be easy trying tp chase away that ugly thought. I'm also now assuming that Cardassians have fishjuice breath, so, another lovely image...Defiant uses cloaking device in Alpha Quadrant.

I swear I almost heard the THX hum during that time travel. NCC one seven oh one, no bloody A, B, C or D . Nice to see the original ship without the grainy original film footage.

"Be specific, Captain- which Enterprise. There have been five."
"Six."
While I have to assume this was a nod to the Enterprise-E, I wonder if it retroactively covers the NX-01 now instead?

"I'm a Doctor, not a historian"

Also kinda fitting that the show based on a space station would choose en episode centered around a space station (and one even vaguely of partial similar design at that). So Tribbles are extinct after the 23rd century?

I like the connection they've made between Dax's history with Koloth and his presence in this episode (not that it's surprising, considering that Kolath's whole reason for having history with Dax is because he was in this epiosde... bah, time loop!

Retroactively amusing that Bashir is pondering if he's part of a Futurama plotline...

Trying to make a Tribble seem ominous seems like a lost cause...

Haha, love how they have Sisko and Dax's actions explaining the last couple Tribbles that fall on Kirk in the original episode- the ones that seemed overtly like set crew members tossing the last few Tribble props at Shatner...turns out, it really WAS crew members, just command crew of DS9.

Also, nice touch to have the returning actor play Darvis; ok, so, not extinct, ha. Fun episode- a clever Back to the Future use of inserted players and a nice throwback to one of the few TOS episodes that has stood the test of time (for the most part). Definitely Essential.



Trivia: 30th Anniversary episode. The original idea was to revisit the episode "A Piece of the Action", where immitators of Kirk and Spock would serve as a commentary on the Trekkie phenomenon- this was dropped as they wanted to revisit a TOS episode using original footage and taking advantage of technological advancements made by films such as Forrest Gump.

The original concept later evolved into the voyager episode Virtuoso (where aliens lacking the concept of music begin to idolize The Doctor after becoming fascinated by The Doctor's singing). The Trouble With Tribbles was the clear standout episode to use, both because it was arguably the most famous episode of TOS but also because it was light hearted compared to other well known episodes such as City on the Edge of Forever.

In an incredible coincidence, Behr and others were at a pizza parlor in Beverly Hills discussing the possibility of bringing TOS actors back when he recognized the actor who played Darvin there. Behr joked in the DVD commentary that those events proved God was a DS9 fan. A test clip with an extra inserted into the shot was prepared by the visual effects team to prove to the writers that they could achieve it on a TV budget.

Creating the footage for the bar fight took almost a full week to shoot due to the complexity of the shots and elements. Everything from the TOS sets were recreated faithfully through freeze framed examinations of TOS footage- details right down to the blinking lights on the bridge, turbolift control panels, wall intercoms, basic surface textures, back-lit corridor graphics and even the pattern of overhead graphics in the Enterrpise corridors were identical to the original. However the interior lights of the turbolift movement move considerably faster than in TOS.

A new model of the Enterprise was created based on a special set of plans made for the original series and inspected it with a magnifying glass to ensure every detail was perfect. This was needed due to refurshes and slight alterations made to the original model over the years. The original model of K-7 had been lost by the time of production, so it's new model was made based on footage in Trouble with Tribbles.

Sisko meeting Kirk is footage from the episode Mirror, Mirror. When Kirk looks over at Dax after sitting on the Tribble in his chair, the director insisted Dax make the glance at short as possible, as the audience would find anything longer to be implausible since Kirk would not have passed up the opportunity to introduce himself to the beautiful new officer on his ship.

Moore had hoped that the music would have been more TOS-like. They also intended to redo the end credits into an homage to TOS's, with freeze frames from various DS9 episodes in the background, the TOS end credit music and changing the credits font to match the original's, but the idea never went very far due to few proponents for the idea and the show already being overbudget. As a result, the only Trek episodes to change title and credit sequences for a single episode(s) are the In a Mirror, Darkly two parter episodes on Enterprise.

There was an intentiomal effort to keep Worf away from the TOS Klingons due to the makeup differences. The suggested "explainations" here were based on fan suggestions over the years and were eventually combined into the official answer during Affliction/Divergence on Enterprise.

The director had cinematography training and shot the episode as if it were actually 1967, using 60's style lenses, lighting techniques and film stock.

Production designer Herman Zimmerman was returning to DS9 from working on First Contact at the time this episode was going into pre-production. He was able to identify that the floot plans found on the Paramount lot were of an incorrect scale- the Enterprise corridors were 7.5 feet wide instead of 12. Had he not returned at that moment, all of the Enterrpise sets would have built to 3/4 scale.

Terry Farrell found reacting to stock footage easier than real people since she could watch the footage and observe exavtly what the other person would be doing. Dax's enthusiasm for the era was the writers means to convey their own enthusiasm for the episode. Dax and Sisko's reactions to entering the corridor of the Enterprise for the first time are genuine- they had not been on the set until that scene was shot.

The DS9 stunt team had both a challenge and a good time adjusting the older brawling styles used in the episode's fight scenes. The film from TTWT were used instead of a VHS copy so that there wouldn't be a difference in quality between the original scenes and the footage.

Behr was thrilled about how the episode turned out, as well as the high ratings and critical acclaim, but was slightly bugged that it feeds off the myth of the franchise and that he was saddened in a way by it's popularity in that he wished a show that was DS9 intensive didn't have to lean on that history.

Odo's comment to Worf about humanoids finding small furry animals pleasing echoes a similar line by bones in the original episode. The reference to the stardate being a Friday refers to the day of the week the original episode originally aired.

The temporal investigators, Dulmur and Lucsly, are anagrams (or near-anagrams) of Mulder and Scully. This is further expanded upon by Dulmar saying he wants "the truth" while Lucsly is more skeptical about Sisko's story. The writers considered having one of them deliver the line "the truth is out there".

This is the first official reference to the Klingon battle cruiser being designated a D-7, until now it was just a reference based on an inside joke between Shatner and Nimoy. The officer that Miles mistakens for Kirk, Freeman, was played by the actor who frequently acted as Shatner's stunt double on the series. Odo should have been able to recognize that Freeman wasn't Kirk as he was in the bar before Chekov and Uhura entered, who did so at the time Kirk and Spock were leaving- so both men were in the bar at the same time.

Darvin, posing as trader Waddle, claims he deals in kevas and trillium- the same two materials Spock claimed he dealt with while posing as a trader in TOS: Errand of Mercy. The Defiant repopulating the Tribbles by bringing them into the 24th century echoes the original crew doing the same with the humpback whales in ST4.

Kirk has had seventeen temporal violations. he went back in time at least 7 times. Some obvious ones include, but are not limited to:
1.) Beaming aboard a 20th century Earth Air Force pilot (allegedly "erased")
2.) Beaming aboard a 20th century guard (allegedly "erased")
3.) Breaking into a military base in 1969 and getting caught (allegedly "erased")
4.) Breaking into a military base in 1968 and getting caught, and beaming out risking being seen doing so
5.) Stealing clothes and clashing with law enforcement in 1930
6.) Beaming aboard two NYC policemen
7.) Helping to sabotage a rocket launch in 1968
8.) Being involuntarily transported into Sarpeidon's past
9.) Giving information about transparent aluminum to the Plexicorp president (although this can be attributed more to Scotty than Kirk, and Scotty himself speculated that they were merely preserving history by providing the original inventor with the means to create it)
10.) Bringing two whales from the 20th century to save Earth from the cetacean probe
11.) Bringing back Gillian Taylor to the 23rd century
12.) Leaving Klingon technology on board the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) (Chekov throws his non-functioning phaser at his captors while trying to escape)
13.) Allowing Bones to cure a 20th century patient with 23rd century medicine
14.) Using a phaser and de-cloaking a Klingon Bird-of-Prey in the presence of 20th century natives
15.) Temporal Investigations may not know about this, as McCoy may be unaware his phaser went missing and a homeless man killed himself with it
16.) Taking work, money, housing and food that others would otherwise have consumed
17.) After Kirk saved the USS Enterprise-B from being destroyed in the Nexus, he was swept into the energy ribbon. Although from his point of view, Kirk was altering future events, he technically went into the past by agreeing to
assist Captain Picard stop Soran. However, Picard altered past events by preventing the destruction of the Veridian System and the survivors of the USS Enterprise-D. Kirk would have known that by leaving the timeline, he would be assisting Picard alter the timeline by preventing the torpedo launch.

This was the first episode of Star Trek since an episode of the Animated Series in 1974 to feature any scenes set in the 23rd century.

Permission of TOS actors was needed to use the stock footage. It took 3 months to negotiate for the footage's usage. Walter Koenig remarked that he was paid eight times more for the use of his likeness than he was for the original episode. Koenig visited the sets and showed Colm Meaney and Alexander Siddig how to properly interact with the set pieces.

The actor is who plays Darvin is the 4th and final actor to reprise a role on DS9 that originated on TOS. All four played Klingons. This is the first of two appearances of the original Constitution-class since TOS (and the first appearance of the original Enterprise since ST3)- the other being the classic Defiant in In A Mirror Darkly.


Up next: VOY 307/304: The Swarm & DS9 506/505: The Assignment.


Time Travel Log:

-TNG: All Good Things... (alternate 3.5 Billion Years Ago; Jean Luc-Picard & Q; from alternate-2370)
-TOS: All Our Yesterdays (2700 BC, Sarpedion Ice Age; NCC-1701 crew; from 2268)
-TOS: All Our Yesterdays (Undefined 17th Century-esque Sarpeidon; NCC-1701 crew; from 2268)
-TNG: Time's Arrow, part I (1893; NCC-1701-D crew; from 2368)
-TOS: The City on the Edge of Forever (1930: NCC-1701 crew; from 2267)
-DS9: Past Tense, Part II (1930; NX-74205 Defiant crew; from 2371)
-DS9: Little Green Men (1947; Quark's Treasure crew; from 2372)
-DS9: Past Tense, Part II (1967; NX-74205 Defiant crew; from 2371)
-TOS: Assignment Earth (1968: NCC-1701; from 2268)
-TOS: Tommorow is Yesterday (1969: NCC-1701; from 2267)
-ST4: The Voyage Home (1986: The Bounty crew, formerly of NCC-1701; from 2286)
-DS9: Past Tense, Part I (2024; NX-74205 Defiant crew; from 2371)
-DS9: Past Tense, Part II (2024; NX-74205 Defiant crew; from 2371)
-DS9: Past Tense, Part II (2048; NX-74205 Defiant crew; from 2371)
-TOS: The Tholian Web (2154 (Mirror Universe): NCC-1764 Defiant; from 2268)
-TOS: The Naked Time (2266: NCC-1701 goes back in time 3 days; from 2266)
-DS9: Trials and Tribble-ations (2268: NX-74205 Defiant crew; from 2373)
-TNG: All Good Things... (alternate 2364; Jean Luc-Picard; from alternate-2370)
-TNG: Time Squared (2365: Picard goes 6 hours into the past; from 2365)
-TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise (2366 (Standard & FKW Universes); NCC-1701-C goes forward through a temporal rift; from 2344)
-TNG: Captain's Holiday (2366; Vorgons; from 27th Century, approx. 2666)
-TNG: Future Imperfect (False-2383; Will Riker. NCC-1701-D; from 2367)
-TNG: A Matter of Time (2368; Berlinghoff Rasmussen; from 22nd Century, using 26th Century technology)
-TNG: Cause and Effect (2368; NCC-1701-D ends up 17 days in the future after timeloop; from 2368)
-TNG: Time's Arrow, part II (2368; Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens; from 1893)
-TNG: Firstborn (2370; Alexander; from 2410)
-TNG: All Good Things... (2370; Jean Luc-Picard from alternate-2370)
-VOY: Time and Again (2371; NCC-74656 crew go back in time 1 day; from alternate-2371)
-DS9: Visionary (2371; Miles flashes forward in time between 3.5 & 5 hours six times; from 2371)
-VOY: Eye of the Needle ( 2371; data and Romulan; from 2351)
-ST7: Generations (2371; Picard and Kirk through the Nexus from 2371 & 2293)
-TNG: All Good Things... (alternate 2395; Jean Luc-Picard & Q; from alternate-2370)

Each series has generally had a unique feel. TOS certainly has the frontier adventure thing to it, but even by time of the TOS movies, things start to become more "known" and, so, we get a series of films expressing much more of a Cold War era vibe in its tales, with a dash of of riding the NASA momentum of the time.

TNG started off more TOS-campy since Roddenberry had more influence, but slowly began to leverage the cold war vibe of the films and eventually evolved into dealing with more sociopolitical facets as Roddenberry was weaned off. DS9 then focused more on war (with the side tangents into relugious and political subplots).

After that, Voyager tried to get back to the TOS vibe unsuccessfully while also trying to be (also unsuccessfully) a continuation of TNG's storytelling (resulting from the wariness of DS9's radical approach at the time) before (seemingly) settling into a more straight action-centric series. ENT tried again to try to (unsuccessfully) get back to TOS (though it partially captured the frontier vibe, to it scredit- but this was somewhat dulled by the temporal cold war elements), then tried to be the 9/11 series of Star Trek in an effort to be relevant, then finally found its groove as a TOS prequel too late.

(nice video, BTW- good choice of camera angles that highlight some of the design similarities)

Well, I still think Voyager was trying for two different things at once. It's main TOS-inspiration was putting the ship into the unknown on it's own. It got it back on the frontier. At the same time it initially tried to be The Next-Next Generation, and that worked in spurts but that competence couldn't be sustained, apparently.

Regardless, for everything that that "TNNG" approach brought to the table, I think it also encouraged them to tell too many stories that felt like leftover Alpha Quadrant stories instead of Delta Quadrant stories (as I've noted in several reviews at this point) which severely dulled that frontier vibe.

The thing about VOY & ENT's intentions that I've ultimately taken from their efforts is it's generally a bad idea to try to emulate TOS as a constant or founding concept. It's so much a product of it's time that people fail to realize the only thing that really stays true is the character dynamic (the general type of stories are still told in every Trek series, just with a different tone/approach)- which is the one thing you can't carry over to a new series since you're dealing with different characters.

It's what made the JJ film succeed- it actually was able to carry over the character dynamic that endures so easily because they were actually using those characters. Meanwhile almost everything else could be given the Star Wars spin to reinvent those trappings into something more palatable that doesn't require viewer context to accept/enjoy.

Though the plot can certainly be poked at easily, and you might have a point with Kirk (I think its simply more just doing Kirk without turning it into a Shatner impression) I was speaking more to the vibe of the thing/era as a whole.

I was not a fan of the lens flares, either. They were even distracting in Super 8 as well.