While in pursuit of
a Maquis ship in the Badlands, Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew)
and the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager are pulled into the
Delta Quadrant. After making a decision that saves an entire
species from being destroyed, but leaves both crews stranded, they
must join forces to begin a 75-year journey across 70,000 light
years of space to return to the Alpha Quadrant, the Federation and
home.
CRITIQUE
The second season
really didn't make much of a statement one way or the other, and
it featured a good number of boring episodes among several good
ones. But overall season two didn't really impress me. The third
season begins with Basics Part 2, the continuation from
last season's cliffhanger ending that left the entire crew
stranded on an unfamiliar planet watching the Kazon-Nistrim fly off with
Voyager.
Well, the conclusion
is only half as good as it could've been. While some of the crew
on the planet encounter some sort of mega snake inside a cave while fleeing from
a group of Neanderthal-like people, the Doctor (Robert Picardo)
and Mr. Suder (Brad Dourif) are the only ones left aboard Voyager
who can make a difference in the current dilemma. Needless to say,
everything turns out okay at the end of the day. The enjoyment
factor for this episode is somewhat low simply because the outcome
is predictable. The stuff on the planet is
pretty weak, but it's fun to see the Doctor in action and find
Suder sacrificing himself for the benefit of everyone else.
The obvious
highlight of the third season is the two-part program called Future's End,
written by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky. It bears some
resemblance to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, but that's
not a bad thing. In fact, it's fun and dramatic, but also conveys
a sense of importance. Voyager comes in sudden contact with a
Federation Timeship, the Aeon, from the 29th century. They learn
from the pilot, Captain Braxton (Allan Royal), that they are
responsible for the collapse of the solar system in the distant
future and for that reason must be destroyed. A complication sends
both ships back in time, and the Voyager crew finds in orbit
during the
year 1996.
Captain Janeway
(Kate Mulgrew) and Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) find out
that Henry Starling (Ed Begley, Jr.), a rich business man, is
responsible for the explosion in the 29th century that causes the
solar system's collapse and the death of several billion people.
Meanwhile, Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) and Security Officer
Tuvok (Tim Russ) investigate a woman named Rain Robinson (Sarah
Silverman, School of Rock) who discovers Voyager in orbit.
Well, without spoiling too much of the program, let me just say
it's highly enjoyable and intriguing; cool stuff. On the other
hand, I must mention the holo emitter that the Doctor later keeps
in his possession after Starling uses it to project him in the
natural environment. The way it works is the EHM program is
downloaded into the emitter, and the Doctor is able to leave Sick
Bay and the Holodeck at any desired time. Cool.
Future's End
is somewhat similar to the two-part Past Tense from Deep Space Nine's third season.
In that program, a transporter
accident sends Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), Captain Benjamin Sisko
(Avery Brooks) and Doctor Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) back in time to the year
2024, when San Francisco was plagued with riots and social
upheaval. Bashir and Sisko are taken to a homeless compound while
Dax is taken care of by a wealthy businessman. Sisko and Bashir's
interventions in an altercation alters the future timeline.
(Thanks to
TV Tome.)
Both programs are similar in tone and structure in the sense that
both are high-profile and occur in the series' respective third
seasons. Anyway, I just thought this was worth mentioning.
Moving on, writer Lisa Klink is
responsible (in part) for several of the duds this season. The first one is
Warlord, Kes' (Jennifer Lien) consciousness is taken over
by an alien who then flees back to his planet to overthrow the
current ruling party. I just didn't get into the whole "change" of
character, plus the story didn't appeal to me. However, Lien's
acting displays very good versatility and range. In Blood Fever,
both Ensign Vorik (Alexander Enberg) and B'Elanna (Roxann-Biggs
Dawson) become entangled in a strange mating relationship known to Vulcan's
as Ponn-Far. The idea of the Vulcan "mating" season (once every
seven years) seemed rather silly, and the love/hate moments
between Paris and B'Elanna didn't quite interest me. The back story of the
people who inhabit the underground caves of the planet Voyager is
investigating sounded intriguing, however. I almost
skipped the latter half of the program, but I stuck around for the
ending, which sets up a neat moment and hints at a forthcoming
danger/villain.
Another one is
Favorite Son where Voyager's reach into unfamiliar space
causes Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) to exhibit strange deja vu. In fact, he learns that
he might be T'Karian, and not human. Once Harry arrives on the
T'Karian homeworld a dozen women welcome him, and after a long
period of seduction he begins to suspect something. The episode
starts off somewhat interesting, but drags on and ultimately says
nothing. Klink also wrote Remember and Sacred Ground,
and I skipped forward a few times on both of them; they were just
not that interesting, although Janeway has some moments in the
latter one where she has to perform several tough rituals to save Kes.
It's not the writing
per se that makes those episodes the duds that they are, the
stories are just not compelling. However, Lisa Klink surprised me
with Displaced; crew members start disappearing one by one,
and each time a stranger from another planet pops up on Voyager
claiming no knowledge of the occurrence. When the strangers
finally outnumber Starfleet, Chakotay suspects something is
definitely wrong, and so he does everything he can do sabotage the
strangers from taking over the ship. I won't say more than this,
because I don't want to spoil the twists. In essence, the latter
half of the episode gets more intriguing, which makes for an
overall very good program.
Continuing with the
duds for a moment, others include
The Q and the Grey when a civil war breaks out in the
Q-Continuum, Q (John DeLancie) finds the only way to stop it is
for him to have a baby with Janeway, and The Darkling, the
doctor's attempt to incorporate psychological profiles of
historical people into his program takes an unexpected turn for
the worse, which affects Kes on a personal level. The former
starts out promising but turns lame, and the latter
just fails to impress despite the rather interesting concept of
the doctor trying to improve his personality.
Another highlight of
the third season, at least it's supposed to be, is Flashback.
It's
not a bad episode, but I just didn't find it compelling
enough.
After falling ill to what appears to be a
repressed memory Tuvok must perform a mind-meld with Captain
Janeway in order to survive. The meld takes them back to when
Tuvok was a junior science officer aboard the U.S.S. Excelsior
under the command of Captain Hikaru Sulu (George Takei). (Thanks
to TV Tome.)
The idea is interesting, but the story of Tuvok's repressed memory
just doesn't seem urgent and dramatic enough, however the program is
well done technically.
Let's keep going: In The Chute,
Paris and Kim must find a way to escape an Akritian prison, but
inside the underground complex it's every inmate for himself. In
The Swarm, Voyager encounters an enormous alien swarm of
tiny but dangerous ships. The repercussions for entering the alien
space are grave, but the crew's alternative would've been a
15-month detour. Both of these shows are mildly entertaining.
False Profits, however, is more entertaining and kind of
amusing, too. Voyager finds an erratic wormhole over an unknown
planet, so work begins on stabilizing it. While on an away mission
on the planet, Chakotay and Paris find two Ferengi playing gods to
a culture that is still in the Bronze Age.
As for Macrocosm,
it's basically an Alien rip-off. A rapidly-growing virus
infects everyone on board Voyager, and when Janeway and Neelix
return from a mission they find everyone unconscious and barely
alive. As the last survivor, and with some help from the Doctor,
Janeway must fight off the life forms to save herself and the
crew. Writer Brannon Braga succeeds in making the episode
mysterious, and I like the passage with the Doctor explaining to
Janeway how the virus came aboard, but the story is not the most
original.
Neelix (Ethan
Phillips), the appointing morale officer on Voyager, is the focus
of the shows Fair Trade and Rise. In the former, he
asks his old friend Wixiban (James Nardini) to help him get a map
of the Nekrit Expanse, an unknown region of space currently in
front of Voyager's passage home. It becomes apparent very early on
that Wixiban is not a trusting character, but Neelix doesn't pick
that up. Instead, both find themselves in a dilemma after a murder
takes place right after Wixiban tries to deal illegal substances.
It's not a bad show, just average, and Neelix should be smarter
than the writing makes him out to be. In Rise, Neelix and
Tuvok find themselves stranded on a planet that gets bombarded by
asteroids every few hours, and in order to survive both must set
aside their differences. Apparently fans don't like this one, but
I liked the episode as it features some decent drama and action, and a good
storyline.
The next set of
shows are mostly enjoyable and feature good if not pretty decent
storylines. In Alter Ego, Kim and Tuvok fall for a holodeck
character named Marayna (Shay Todd), and the twist at the end is
kind of interesting. Written by Jeri Taylor, Coda sees
Captain Janeway experiencing the same fate over and over again,
her
death. What first appears to be a time loop later turns out to be
an alien force trying to convince Janeway to "move on". Unity
is a good one, it's written by Kenneth Biller and directed by
Robert Duncan McNeill, who plays Paris. In the show, Chakotay
lands on a planet only to find a people in social upheaval. The
people who help him get better after an attack turn out to be
former Borg, but that's all I will say. Distant Origin is
interesting in the sense that it tells the story of an alien
paleontologist who finds that his race could be related to humans.
In Before and After,
Kes travels back and forth trough time, which causes several
problems. The story is somewhat interesting but not that
compelling, and it doesn't help being confusing as well. The good
thing about it is after it's all over Kes wears her hair
differently, making her look more sexy (and that's not a bad
thing). Real Life is kind of a draw. Part of the story is
interesting, part of it is rather boring. The Doctor creates a
holographic family with very mixed results, but this makes the
B-story with Voyager less impacting.
Worst Case
Scenario, written by Kenneth Biller, is intriguing and
exciting, though from the beginning of the show you'll notice
something is definitely not right. Chakotay approaches B'Elanna
and quizzes her about loyalty. Later, on the bridge, Chakotay
stages a take-over that turns into a Maquis mutiny. The strange
thing is Seska (Martha Hackett) shows up, and Kes' hair style is
the old one. Well, it turns out the whole event is part of a
holo novel that B'Elanna finds by mistake while cleaning up old
computer files. There's a cool twist later in the show that
finds the novel's author and another crew member in danger when they
load the program to finish writing it. However, this turns out
to be a big mistake as the program alters itself and safety is turned
off. The twist is neat and spells danger, but it's also a bit
improbably when thinking about the ramifications of the person
responsible for the holodeck malfunctions.
Scorpion,
written by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky, and directed by series
regular David Livingston, is a respectable season finale,
definitely better than the one from last season. Basically what
happens is Voyager gets to Borg space, and Kes begins to have
telepathic visions of a horrific altercation with the Borg.
Captain Janeway and crew quickly learn of an unknown force that is
more powerful than the Borg after they encounter fifteen Borg
cubes destroyed and floating dead in space. (For some reason the
alien ship bears a kind of resemblance to the concept of
Ambassador Kosh's ship from Babylon 5. Whether that's a
coincidence or not I cannot say, but it would be interesting to
find out one way or the other.)
Well, the only way
to stop this new alien, referred to by the Borg as Species 8472,
is to consider a possible alliance. Chakotay makes an interesting
reference to the story of a scorpion, but Captain Janeway sees no
alternative but to negotiate with the Borg. Will it work?! Well,
that's a question to be answered in season four. Also, in a sense,
Scorpion reminds somewhat of the pivotal and great third
season finalein Star Trek: The Next Generation in
the sense that the Borg make a return appearance, but only this
time in a completely different light. Whereas the Borg assimilate
Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in The Best of Both
Worlds, Voyager must deal with the collective one way or the
other, and from what I've read the Borg become somewhat of a
recurring villain in upcoming shows.
The 26 episodes of
the third season break down as follows:
Disc 1:
Basics Part 2, Flashback, The Chute, The Swarm
Disc 2:
False Profits, Remember, Sacred Ground, Future's End Part 1
Disc 3:
Future's End Part 2, Warlord, The Q and the Grey, Macrocosm
Disc 4:
Fair Trade, Alter Ego, Coda, Blood Fever
Disc 5:
Unity, Darkling, Rise, Favorite Son
Disc 6:
Before and After, Real Life, Distant Origin, Displaced
Disc 7:
Worse Case Scenario, Scorpion, Special Features
THE VIDEO
Paramount presents
Voyager in the original 1.33:1 fullscreen format. Colors
are generally natural-looking and well-saturated. Detail is
quite good and sharpness mostly well-defined. Black levels and
dark tones are not necessarily deep, but look just fine. Scenes
shot in low light appear less detailed and grainy, but the
majority of scenes look bright and detailed. Compression
artifacts do not cause any problems, but grain appears in a
number of scenes in almost every episode. The print image is
free of scratches and looks pretty nice. This presentation
is not perfect, but overall pretty good.
THE AUDIO
Paramount presents
Voyager in English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound.
Dialogue is clear and easy to understand. The front speakers
emit most of the audio, but channel separation is pretty good.
Rear speakers do a good job channeling the sound effects and the
music score. Surround usage is somewhat limited in the
audio-driven scenes, yet there are moments when the audio
penetrates the soundfield. Overall, this is a pretty good audio
transfer for a TV show.
Also available is
an English Stereo Surround track plus closed captions.
You can
select to view the episodes with optional English subtitles.
THE EXTRAS
All special
features are located on disc 7. Featured are six new
behind-the-scenes featurettes with English subtitles.
Interviews are presented in widescreen.
Braving the
Unknown: Season Three (13:10) features interviews from
mid-2003 with creators/executive producers Rick Berman and Jeri
Taylor, writer Brannon Braga, director David Livingston, and
actors Robert Picardo, Roxann-Biggs Dawson, Tim Russ, and
Garrett Wang (with long hair!). Shows discusses are Real Life,
Blood Fever, Future's End, the return of the Borg, and the
aliens from the season finale. Why talk about the rather
tame/lame Real Life and Blood Fever when shows
like Distant Origin and Worst Case Scenario, and
Displaced are better and more interesting? Well, because
Picardo and Dawson only talk about the former two shows,
respectively. Braga and Berman discuss Future's End to a
good degree, but comments by Wang on the Borg and Russ'
assessment on
Pon-Farr are not
interesting. This featurette is not an overwhelming look at the
third season, it's too general, and the interviews are just full
of opinions and not interesting stories.
Voyager Time
Capsule: Neelix (12:04) features a new interview with actor
Ethan Phillips. He goes on about the character and his
developments throughout the show, as well as acting, etc. Beware
of several spoilers as to the fate of the Neelix character.
Voyager Time
Capsule: Kes (12:03) uses an old interview with Jennifer
Lien while on the desert set shooting the series' pilot. Lien's
comments are not that interesting because she provides only her
initial thoughts on the character. Why is there no new interview
with her? It's a shame. Instead Robert Picardo and Ethan
Phillips offer their thoughts on Kes, and again look out for
several spoilers.
Flashback to
"Flashback" (13:36) features interviews with
George Takei (Captain Sulu) explaining his involvement, which is
rather interesting, Tim Russ reflecting on working with Takei,
director David Livingston commenting on the challenge of making
the show, Michael Okuda discussing the recreation of the sets of
the U.S.S. Excelsior bridge, and Visual Effects Supervisor Dan
Curry talking about the effects. It's also interesting to note
that almost all of the actors and extras from Star Trek VI:
The Undiscovered Country were called back and/or found to
appear in Flashback.
Red Alert:
Visual Effects Season 3 (16:55) is hosted by Visual Effects
Supervisor Dan Curry who talks and describes the effects (and
aliens) from shows like Basics Part 2, Distant Origins,
Future's End, Macrocosm, and Scorpion. At
one point he holds up a prop of the alien virus from
Macrocosm. There's also some talk on Species 8472, the
really mean aliens who swear to destroy the weak, as well as
several clips of temp footage from various effects shots.
Real Science
with Andre Bormanis (10:40) is kind of an interesting
featurette, mainly because of the topics discussed, albeit
superficially: spatial
distortions, supernovae, wormholes (they "are real"), subspace
(nothing on that yet), the Nekrit expanse as created by Bormanis
in Fair Trade, the existence of extraterrestrial life,
and so on. Two astrophysicists are interviewed in this piece as
well, and their information is mostly interesting.
Page four of the
special features menu offers a photo gallery and a
Borg Invasion 4Dpreview trailer (0:57) of the Las
Vegas Hilton attraction. There's also a $5 coupon inside
the packaging.
There are several
hidden extras, or Easter Eggs, as well, they're tiny
featurettes on specific things. Just click left and right on
your remote while in the special features menu to get to them. I
didn't care for some of them, but they're nice to have in any
case.
We don't get any
commentaries again, which is actually disappointing. A
commentary by the director and writer on the season finale
could've been interesting. Too bad.
The menus are very easy to
navigate, but the menu load time becomes a bit too long
especially if you watch many episodes in a row. Hence, a "play
all" option for the episodes should've been included.
The packaging of
the set is kind of nice, but also
quite fragile. The lack of disc art is rather frustrating, especially
because the Deep Space 9 discs looked pretty cool. Episode
titles, airdates, and stardates are listed on the individual
discs, but they're kind of hard to decipher what corresponds to
what.
Each episode runs for
approximately
45 minutes and is organized into
eight chapters. Running time for all 26
episodes is roughly 19 hours and 43 minutes. The back of the DVD
plastic casing lists episode airdates, episode titles and stardates.
It appears there's a print error on the back of the
DVD set, the title printed is Worse Case Scenario when it should
read Worst Case Scenario instead.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Season 3 is an
improvement over last season, that's for sure. There are still some
duds, but many of the 26 episodes are entertaining one way or another,
and I'm surprised to report there are several exciting and intriguing
shows as well. The season finale ends on a good note, that is, I'm
highly anticipating the outcome. However, I will now have to wait two
and a half months for season 4 to come out on DVD, that's September
28! Why such a long wait, Paramount?
In any case, the DVD
offers good video/audio quality. The video-based extras are okay. They
don't seem all that challenging or revealing, most of the interviews
are opinion after opinion, which becomes repetitive.
Nevertheless, it's better to have these featurettes than
nothing at all. Overall, this season
comes recommended even though the price tag is still pretty steep.
