Treks, Gates and Wars

I'm working on it, I should be finished with Voyager's first season by the end of the week. After that I'll give a "A Year in Film" recap of 1996.

Hey, good work. Is the Nautilus a pre-refit or refit Constitution class starship?

Star Trek Voyager: A Different Path Home (Part 4)

Season 1 - (Part 3)

----

Episode 13: The First Memory

Directed by: Bryan Spicer
Teleplay by: Rockne S. O'Bannon, David Kemper and Kenneth Biller
Story by: Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Kemper

Story:
As Voyager links with a massive "mobile trade port" to exchange equipment Vosima recalls his first memory of his people after seeing a trinket at an alien's stand. He steals the trinket and runs deep into the trade port, trying to figure out exactly what it is while continuing the recall the face of a woman wearing it. Meanwhile Paris and Neelix try to locate him while at the same time trying to secure additional plasma manifolds for Voyager's warp drive to repair some minor damage sustained during their skirmish with the Kazon vessel in "Broken Mask" (in a rare instance of continuity between episodes in early Voyager episodes).

Vosima continues to remember brief flashes of his life before a drone including an image of Borg Drones invading his homeworld and taking him and the woman wearing the trinket. Returning to the stand and demanding to know where the trader got it from, he's arrested by the port security before he can get any answers, prompting Chakotay to try and negotiate his release, except that before he can free him, Vosima is attacked in his cell by a masked assailant and nearly killed before Tuvok can interfere.

In the end of the episode we see Vosima in his quarters recreating an image of the trinket on a PADD and wondering to himself who the person wearing it was and why did it appear in a random trade post if he remembers her being assimilated. Then Kes arrives in his cell, sensing his emotional discomfort, she touches the amulet and receives a similar vision to Vosima's second flashback, hearing Vosima shouting the woman's name "Eleys". Vosima can't remember who exactly Eleys is but Kes promises to help him find her.

Background:
Following the cancellation of Rockne S. O'Bannon's brainchild seaQuest DSV, the writer found himself out of work but was approached along with former DSV staff writer David Kemper to come on board Voyager and fill the remaining holes in the writing staff left behind by Piller, Taylor and Braga.

O'Bannon and Kemper, after being caught up to speed with the show's characters and Moore's vision for it, conceived of a character-driven episode that would focus on two stories, one being Vosima remembering something from before his life as a drone for the first time and the other being Neelix trying to assist the crew by securing vital components that Voyager has ran short of.

The initial drafts of the script were written by O'Bannon and Kemper, with Kenneth Biller being brought in to polish it by adding a few continuity nods to previous episodes and adding Paris to the Neelix plot as a "comedic double act". The resulting episode was critically acclaimed as a solid character tragicomedy.

This episode is also notable for introducing Vosima's long running character arc to discover who he was before he was assimilated, which would continue until Edward Norton's departure from the show after Season 5.

----

An excerpt from Chuck "SFDebris" Sonnenburg's review of "The First Memory"

So as the Voyager crew are hanging around this space swap meet Vosima has a sudden flashback while looking at an alien trinket that looks like something you'd find at a beachfront knick-knack booth and he has the most logical reaction to it, he swipes it and then cowers away in a corner like a Doctor Who fan after watching the FOX revival pilot.

But enough about this dramatic scene, it's time for Kenneth Biller to do what he does best, wasting potential. We see Paris and Neelix failing to barter for some plasma conduits since some of Voyager's got busted during their skirmish with the Kazon back in "Broken Mask", I know continuity is so rare in the first two seasons I'm amazed they even remembered that Voyager had damage that needed fixing, I always assumed they'd just press the reset button like they did every other week.

Still the reason why this subplot exists is to add some levity into what is otherwise a pretty heavy story. Too bad Biller got his hands on the subplot and the guy has the comedy chops of an al-Qaeda hostage video.

Paris: Chin up Neelix, there's always next time.

I'm pretty sure that was Ron Moore's standard response to all the hatemail the show probably got in its early seasons.

Cutting back to Vosima we have him staring at the amulet, and I don't think these two should be in a room alone together. He then has another flashback, must be a 2-for-1 deal, and this time we see the woman being dragged away by Borg drones to be assimilated, which causes Vosima to freak out and start beating the everlasting crap out of a nearby mannequin thinking that he was the drone.

Now, Vosima hallucinating because of stress is nothing new, we saw that in TNG's "Awakenings", it's just that back in that episode his cortical node implant was malfunctioning which is why he couldn't tell his dreams from reality, a node that Crusher managed to remove by the end of that episode and that's what fixed him. So, why is he hallucinating now? I don't know why don't we ask the guy that gave us the worst Voyager episode ever.

Ronald D. Moore: Um, Ken this is a continuity error, Vosima shouldn't be hallucinating. [1]
Kenneth Biller: Oh come on Roland, since when did continuity matter in Star Trek, it didn't in Generations.
Ronald D. Moore: It's Ronald, and also that's why the movie wasn't all that good...
Kenneth Biller: Relax Rondo I know what I'm doing, after all I think that inbreeding is a myth, that's what my mom and also my sister told me.
Ronald D. Moore: Wow, two people told you that huh?
Kenneth Biller: No, no, no, they're the same person.
Ronald D. Moore: ...okay.

I think that might be the most tasteless joke I've ever written.

[...]

But the interesting plot can't last because the pointless Paris and Neelix plot had to rear its ugly head again. We see the two once again pestering the mechanic that had already turned their offer down, now they have the latinum but as it turns out he had already sold the plasma manifolds to someone else because this B-plot just wasn't overdrawn enough.

Eventually they track down the buyer and Neelix just barely manages to persuade him to part with the manifolds and then we have the stupidest joke ever.

Neelix: Boy that man is wound up.
Paris: Well I'm glad we didn't ask him for a warp coil.

Yeah, that's not something you can follow up on so, the end.

Oh right, there's that final scene where Kes goes all Dead Zone on the necklace, not much to say about it other than "the end".

Post Episode Follow-up:

There's no "Stupid Neelix Moment" this week because compared to how insufferable Paris has been in this episode Neelix is actually tolerable. As such this is chronologically the first episode to be worthy of an "Annoying Character" instead and the honour goes to Thomas Eugene "Used Car Salesman" Paris. Wow, I don't know if that's because Neelix was better written or because Paris was so annoying but either way this episode doesn't get a +1 bonus for it.

Final Score for "The First Memory" is 7/10. Going somewhat against the popular opinion that this is the best of season 1, much like "Broken Mask" it's trying to fuse two mis-matching ideas into one to the detriment of both of them. Except that at least this time the A-plot actually feels like it had a cohesive beginning, middle and end, and the B-plot wasn't too much of a detraction and it did actually have a couple of funny moments but by and large was useless.

We're gonna be taking a break from Voyager for the time being, next week will be our Christmas special, the worst episode of Discovery [2], "The Voice of Andoria". God help me.

[1] This is a recurring joke in SFDebris' reviews, where he would act out an imaginary conversation between two or more people behind the work he's reviewing, it's more or less a representation of his interpretation of events that led to the work in question being the way it is. The two best examples are from his ENT "A Night in Sickbay" and Howard the Duck reviews. As usual here's the links to the two they're really funny videos:

[2] ITTL's version of Star Trek: Enterprise, created by Bryan Fuller and Marc Scott Zicree. Don't expect me to elaborate on it for a while though.

----

Episode 14: Triage


Directed by: Winrich Kolbe
Written by: Marc Scott Zicree and Joe Menosky

Story:
After Voyager flies through an unstable corridor of subspace, a "gravitic shockwave" ripples through the ship and injures multiple crewmembers as well as disabling the vessel's warp drive.

As the Doctor and Kes struggle with the number of patients, Kes admits to the Doctor that she misses her homeworld because "nothing this intense happened there." Kes's growing empathic and telepathic abilities are then overwhelmed by the negative sensations and thoughts of all the injuries, leaving the Doctor with one more patient and one less helper, forcing Chakotay to bring in Paris and former Maquis crewman and colony medical student Yvonne Falconer (played by Rya Kihlstedt) to act as his assistants much to the Doctor's annoyance as both Paris and Falconer are less than cooperative and their inexperience nearly results in the death of a severely injured crewmember.

In the meantime Vosima and an injured, but still driven to do her job, Heller try to fix Voyager's engines despite the friction between the two as one of Heller's tutors was killed at Wolf 359 and Vosima's patience is tested by her overzealous attitude which causes an overload that sets them back a day.

As the Doctor struggles to save a dying crewmember and former Maquis Chell, Paris and Falconer finally give it their best and the three succeed in saving him. With most of the critical injuries out of the way, they focus their attention to a now comatose Kes, Paris suggests Tuvok or another Vulcan mind-melding with her to see if the problem is psychological while Falconer suggests reprogramming some of Vosima's nano-probes to run a "cerebral diagnostic of her brain". The Doctor rejects both of these ideas on the grounds that they have no idea how Kes will react to either of them, that's when Neelix arrives demanding to know what is wrong with Kes. When the Doctor doesn't have a diagnosis, Neelix agrees to Falconer's plan and the Doctor reluctantly goes along with it.

With the aid of Vosima and Falconer he's able to reprogram some of Vosima's nanoprobes and they manage to explain exactly what's wrong with Kes. She is still being overwhelmed by the crew's pain, they believe that if they move her far from the injured she'll be okay so the Doctor has Kes, Neelix and Vosima transported into the Holodeck, where predictably she does awaken.

In the end Voyager manages to repair its damage but as Heller observes they're starting to run low on vital spare parts even after the plasma manifolds they obtained last episode. While Kes struggles to understand why her powers manifested in such a way.

Background:
This story was conceived by Marc Scott Zicree and Joe Menosky as a character-driven tale, where the Voyager crew would face a "gravitic anomaly" that would cause minor damage to the vessel and injure multiple crewmembers, with the rest of the episode being divided into two plotlines in which the Doctor, Paris and a Maquis crewmember would try to save as many severely injured crewmembers as possible while Heller and Vosima would try to fix Voyager's damaged warp drive.

Ron Moore liked the script and was able to sneak in as much continuity from previous Voyager episodes as possible while setting up future plot points. There were several continuity nods that the network spotted and demanded to be removed and Moore just barely managed to persuade the network to leave the reference to the events of "The First Memory".

----

Episode 15: Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Part 1)

Directed by: Les Landau
Written by: Ronald D. Moore and J. J. Abrams

Story:
Voyager is ambushed by the Kazon controlled Solstice (from "Lost Stars") and several crewmembers, including Vosima, Tuvok and Heller are beamed over in the brief firefight and Voayger's warp drive is disabled.

Over on Solstice the captured Voyager crewmembers are viciously interrogated by the Kazon leader Culluh. Vosima and Tuvok say nothing but Heller ends up breaking under torture and reveals Voyager's shield frequency, allowing the normally inferior Kazon ships to be more than a match for Voyager.

The episode then splits into two plots.

The A-plot concerns Voyager repairing its engines and begins pursuing the Solstice only to be ambushed by two Kazon vessels, and before the chief engineer Lt. Carey can re-modulate the shield frequency, the Kazon cripple the ship's weapons, forcing Voyager to hide out in a nebula while it repairs itself.

The B-plot is the plight of the Voyager crew on board the Solstice.

Vosima attempts to jury-rig a subspace transmitter using the contents of an emergency supply kit that the Kazon overlooked in the crew quarters they're using as his cell, he barely manages to get a signal through before the Kazon ambush knocks out Voyager's long range transceiver.

Tuvok makes contact with the ship's first officer Lt. Commander Linda Fang (played by Ming-Na Wen) who reveals that Culluh tortured the ship's captain Kathryn Keller to death along with the rest of the senior staff, leaving Fang for last since neither revealed the encryption code for the Solstice's database resulting in Culluh still being mostly ignorant of the vessel's capability. The two plan to retake the vessel from the Kazon.

Heller is forced to fight in gladiatorial matches with other Kazon slaves, including a Talaxian who claims to know Neelix, warning Heller that "he's not what he seems, he's a murderer."

The episode ends on a cliffhanger, Voyager is discovered by the Kazon but with most of its weapons down, it struggles to gain the upper hand against the two Kazon vessels and its shields are about to fail, Heller is about to be killed by her latest opponent, Vosima is brought in for another round of interrogation and Tuvok and Fang are discovered trying to sabotage the ship's warp drive to buy Voyager time to find them.

To be continued...

Background:
Ron Moore and J. J. Abrams began penning the season finale with the idea of having the Kazon be the antagonists, who after having successfully commandeered the Solstice, would pursue Voyager and attempt to destroy or capture it as well.

The idea to have some of the crew being captured by the Kazon in the initial attack came from Abrams, who was inspired by re-watching the original Star Wars trilogy, and how The Empire Strikes Back would split the heroes and give them separate stories, with Abrams writing the Solstice scenes and Moore writing the Voyager ones.

Initially Moore didn't want this to be a cliffhanger ending, preferring instead to make it a two-part season finale that would lead in to the next season, kind of like how Deep Space Nine would end it's seasons, Abrams again convincing Moore to make it a cliffhanger, which consequently freed a slot in the season's schedule for "Triage".

----

Overview of Season 1:

Ronald D. Moore's attempts to salvage Voyager after Piller and Taylor's departure were met with mixed success, several episodes like "Emanations" and "Nautilus" were met with tepid reception and the network mandate had stifled the writers' ability to tell multi-episode narratives.

Moore and new staff writers J. J. Abrams, Marc Scott Zicree, David Kemper and Rockne S. O'Bannon now had to find a direction for the show, despite the problems still facing it. The character of Neelix in particular being met with very negative fan reception, something which made Scott Bakula very reluctant to return for another season, Moore however was certain that the character can be saved and so began to plant the seeds of a character arc for Neelix that would last until the character's death in late-season 3, while at the same time trying their best to avoid mistakes that would result in bad storytelling and character development.

At the same time UPN had greenlit Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss' series Sliders for a 13 episode first season to air alongside the first half of Voyager's second season. Brannon Braga's attachment to the series would cause the Voyager writing staff to keep an eye on the show.

The first season was seen by fans as a mixed bag, with some good episodes like "The First Memory" and "Triage" but mostly composed of bad or mediocre episodes by the franchise's standards and especially when compared to the contemporary Deep Space Nine's storytelling quality and character arcs.

Only time could tell if Voyager would continue to improve after it's bad start.

They are completely original, OTL's last three episodes of Season 1 are: 

"Faces" in which Heller (or Torres in OTL) is split into two people, one Human and one Klingon by the Vidiians, get's butterflied away along with the Vidiians.

"Jetrel" in which Neelix's past as a draft dodger is revealed and it's a very heavy-handed Aesop about the A-bomb. Moore's different direction about Neelix's character results in the story that made "Jetrel" OTL being rejected in favor of the Doctor-centric "Triage"

And "Learning Curve" in which Tuvok attempts to integrate some of the more unruly Maquis into the crew by being a Drill Sergeant Nasty, it's also notable for having a bizarre B-plot in which (and I swear I am not making this up), Neelix's cheese ends up nearly destroying the ship, I would explain how it happens but it's too stupid for me to recap without getting a stupidity-induced brain tumor so again I'll plug SFDebris who explains it best: sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v816.php 

Watching his review, you can tell why Moore rejected the script by Ronald Wilkerson and Jean Louise Matthias in favor of "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" in addition to just being a weak season finale.

Season 2 will feature some of OTL's episodes as well as new ones penned by the radically different writing staff.

No you cannot have him play Superman.

How can i ignore it when he is already there.