Monday, July 7, 2008

A bit of philosophy on life, the universe, and everything.

Starship Mine

Sometimes you just have a really busy day. Everyone running to you asking what to do because they suddenly lose the ability to think for themselves. Suddenly, Deanna, Beverly, and Will - three generally competent people - become embodiments of "ask someone else". "Ask someone else" is a painful (for those around you) personal philosophy in which, during times of stress, you rely on someone or something to tell you what to do. In some situations, this can be a checklist, or if you're just totally lobotomized it can mean running to your commanding officer.

I feel Picard's pain right now.

Now, throw in an android trying to make small talk and you might as well just curl up with a tub of chocolate ice cream and let the tears fall.

This is me NOT playing The Voyager Game

Voyager: Lineage

Have you ever noticed that Tom and B'Elanna are very much in love? It really is sweet. Been going on since Season 1, "Faces". Anyway, she keels over in Engineering, Icheb grabs a tricorder, and informs her she has a parasite.

Not a parasite. She's pregnant. Good grief.

I actually remember this. If I recall, she tried to make the Doctor perform genetic modification on her unborn daughter.

Anyway, I guess Klingon/Human pregnancies sometimes clash, resulting in fainting. So how come humans faint when they're pregnant? Maybe Doc means Klingons don't usually faint? Oh, who cares, at least they're making up new rules, not contradicting old ones.

Then Tom says the odds agains Human/Klingon conception are high, and now I've gotta say something. B'Elanna is a Human/Klingon conception. And how about K'Eyhlar? I'm pretty sure Alexander wasn't exactly a test tube baby either. Now we're making up new rules.

Anyway, they're happy, which is good. Not telling anyone, which is good. Replicating a crib, re-arranging the living area, looking up holodeck child-rearing programs (and apparently forgetting the events of "Real Life" which is probably for the best), lots of smiling. Until Tom goes into the mess hall and is met by cheering. Seems Icheb spilled the beans. Neelix wants to be the godfather.

Janeway and Chakotay come to congratulate B'Elanna, Harry rubs it in Tom's face that he's definitely off anything resembling bachelor duty, then runs away.

Tom goes into a Jeffries Tube with Tuvok and starts talking about the baby only to find out Tuvok was totally clueless. He asks for advice from the only dad onboard. Apparently Tom's scared shitless. Tuvok points out that offspring are "disturbingly illogical" and he should "anticipate paradox".

Tom and B'Elanna compare ridiculousness that evening. Comparing who wants to be godfather, who has names picked out, who has parenting advice....folk wisdom from Chell that makes me wish there were warp cores on Earth. B'Elanna's all rattled and over-emotional and then she calms down and then the Doctor calls.

The baby has her mother's deviated spine. Doc lets slip that it's a girl. He can give the baby a genetic modification to fix it, and they get to see what she'll look like. Cute kid. B'Elanna's disappointed that she'll look Klingon. She remembers her father, who, if you'll recall, left her. Ouch.

Anyway, we have a flashback to a camping trip B'Elanna took with her dad and her uncle and cousins.

The next morning she goes in to have the spine thingy and has more flashbacks. Her cousins are mean to her and she runs off. She wakes up when the procedure is over and goes to the holodeck to see her kid at twelve, and then deletes the Klingon genes to make her not look like that. Good times.

Doc won't do it though. She fights him about it, and he reviews her work and tells her to talk to Tom, who is firmly against it. They fight, and B'Elanna drags them to Janeway and they all argue about it, until Janeway says she won't order the Doctor to do it.

B'Elanna won't talk to Tom, who ends up crashing on Harry's couch. He and Harry talk the whole thing out and B'Elanna goes back to her flashbacks. She returned to camp and everyone apologized snd it was all good on the surface, but her father tried to talk to her and she said she wished he wasn't Klingon. She ends up reading through her uncle's fish story.

And sleeping alone.

Anyway, that night her father and uncle were talking about how hard it is to live with Klingons. Her dad talks like he hates his marriage and being a dad.

Chakotay takes B'Elanna to coffee and then ducks out when they run into Tom. They try to agree to disagree, and the Doc calls them. He reviewed the data and decided they need the genetic alterations. The baby is in danger unless they eliminate the Klingon genetic material. It's scheduled for tomorrow morning.

Tom goes to Icheb for help with the genetics. Turns out there's an error. Someone rewrote Doc, and B'Elanna's in sickbay. Terrif.

Tom runs to Sickbay with Tuvok and they force the door. It's all very emotional and possibly one of the best scenes of Season 7. Have I mentioned I love Tom/B'Elanna? Anyway, she's got issues, thinks Tom's gonna leave her and the baby.

Sappiness ensues.

And B'Elanna comes to apologize to the Doctor and ask him to be the godfather. And the baby kicks for the first time. Did I mention that Klingons have a 30-week gestation, could be shorter in this case, and seven of them are gone by already, so kicking is actually feasible in this case?

Okay, so I love love love love looooove that this ep is not stolen from any Star Trek that I can immediately identify. Maybe an episode of The O.C., but not Star Trek. Kids rock.

It's not all about Seven. The Voyager Game, Part 4: Shattered.

Voyager, "Shattered".

Icheb and Naomi are doing a puzzle together. And I mean this...awwww. Chakotay is hoarding cider, which Icheb stashes in the Borg components to keep Neelix out of it. Awwww. Chakotay is still doing dinner with Janeway. Awwww. J/C shippers everywhere bite their nails and pray for the day that they get home and...awwww. Red alert, anomaly, explosion, Chakotay rushed to sickbay, blah blah blah.

He wakes up in a Sickbay where Doc doesn't have a mobile emitter. Realizing that's weird, he wanders down the hall to the turbolift and heads for the Bridge, which is still in the Badlands looking for a Maquis ship. Janeway has him arrested but on the way to the brig his guards disappear. There is only one conclusion: Chakotay keeps popping around Voyager in different time periods. Terrif. Okay, so, how is it that he appears in the same place in the ship when the ship is, for instance, in the freaking Badlands? That's some pretty cool technology. I bet they could use that to go home! I also bet they won't get to do that.

So, when he goes back in time, it's like "All Good Things..." which didn't affect the future when he affected the past. But that was Q. And I know this isn't Q.

Anyway, Doc had given him some serum that was chroniton-infused, because he got hurt in Engineering, but it was the Doctor of the past that gave him the serum, because different parts of the ship exist in different time periods. Points for having Engineering under Seska's control. The Bridge is right after they left DS9, but Tom isn't there. I'd say he was downstairs yelling at the replicator, but Harry is there so that can't be right. Also, guess who else isn't there! Commander Cavit. Talk about a footnote in history. And just when I was so impressed with the continuity.

Chakotay goes back to the Bridge and gets Janeway to trust him. He tells her how she got Molly the dog and she drags him in the ready room.

And then he gets her to scan the hypospray, she wants to have Harry scan it too, but then instead Chakotay grabs the hypospray and Janeway and drags her out of her own ready room in front of some nameless starfleet minion who I don't have to count in my list because he didn't necessarily make it to the Delta Quadrant alive. Tangent over. Because that's smart, Chakotay. Brilliant in fact. You're not on a time crunch, you don't even know what's going on, you have no evidence that the ship won't stay like this forever. I wonder if you went up to the bridge and sent a distress call what would happen? Would Starfleet maybe send a ship to beam you all back? Of course then all the Maquis would die. Bad plan. Never mind. But you see my point - not a good time to be grabbing Janeway by the throat.

So he drags her down a corridor and shoots her up with the serum and takes her through a time portal. Then he lets her go. They wander over to Astrometrics, and props to the creative team for realizing that Janeway should be confused, because Astrometrics wasn't always there. Chakotay fills her in on the cliffs notes version of the last seven years. Anyway, she believes now.

Astrometrics is not doing well, full of unconcious people. "This could be the time telepathic pitcher plants put us all in comas," Chakotay says, "or it might be the time aliens invaded our dreams." Why not ask the computer what the date is? Oh, never mind. Why did they choose two of the lamest-sounding (although in the case of "Bliss", surprisingly coolest) concepts from all of Voyager?

Or it could be in the future, when Naomi and Icheb run Astrometrics! They're all growed up now! Janeway and Chakotay died 17 years ago. They all decide they need Seven, except for Janeway, who has no clue who Seven is. Chakotay decides to go find Seven, who, I would like to point out, is still alive 17 years later, but died five years after "Endgame" according to Admiral Janeway. Yeah-huh. Headache.

The cargo bay is full of Borg, because it's in the middle of Scorpion. Seven is still borgified. All those who saw that coming?

Question: If technology won't pass through the rift thingies, only stuff that's had the serum - why isn't Chakotay naked? Anyway, Doc replicates them some belts that will go through the different time periods with them. They go inject the gel pacs with the serum to get them all charged with whatever, and then what happens? Big damn macrovirus.

Macrovirus!

I thought we'd seen the last of those.

Macrovirus.

Macro. Virus.

MACROVIRUS.

Okay, now I'm done. Slow death please, with a side of OMG, just when it couldn't get any weirder! You know what this is? Voyager Cliffs Notes.

Stupid macrovirus.

It's like, "Here's our lame tribute to the last seven years. Enjoy!"

Okay, I'm over it now.

Chakotay tells Janeway it was a macrovirus.

You know what would be cool? Going back to Astrometrics and getting Seven and Icheb to tell them what time period everything is in so they can know what they're getting into wherever they go. For some reason they also have to visit the holodeck, they also have to visit Captain Proton. Right, holodeck access port. They have a run-in with Satan's Robot and Chaotica. He remembers Arachnia, all right. Maniacal laughter ensues. Janeway begs for her pathetic life, Chakotay throws in some Aliens from the Eigth Dimension, and then Arachnia makes a return appearance.

Janeway decides that her Mr. Paris will never have holodeck privileges after that.

Next, they find a bunch of Maquis, including B'Elanna, right after the destruction of the Array. B'Elanna is not in a good mood. They do what they need to do, but B'Elanna blames Janeway for stranding them, which gets Janeway curious. Janeway questions Chakotay about it and he tells her about the Ocampa.

The mess hall is full of patients and Tom. Tom is not happy. Neelix runs into Janeway and gives her coffee. Tuvok is a patient, in really bad shape. He tells her it was an honor to serve with her and be her friend, and then he dies. Which is more fun then the whole insanity thing he did in "Endgame".

They get in the turbolift, and Janeway decides she wants to start the whole thing over and not get stranded. She calls the Delta Quadrant a "deathtrap". Not that that's wrong. Chakotay has to tell her about Seven recovering her humanity, Tom's various jobs, plus the fact that he marries that angry woman in the transporter room - the future Chief Engineer. "Are you going to be lecturing me like this for the next seven years?" asks Janeway. No, only the next three, and then you'll have Seven and Chakotay will be reduced to a walking prop until they decide to have him do a token ep every year. Not that I'm bitter.

They go to Engineering and get Seska to let them inject the gel packs.She hits on him for a minute, but then decides that if he's from the future he must not be stranded on that planet which means, say it with me now, they got the ship back, and Seska lost. God, she's slow.

She tries to make it go back to her timeframe, which could blow the ship up, and then Janeway gets Tom and Harry to jump in and start a big fight next to the warp core. Brilliant. Seska takes Janeway hostage, they almost lose, but Seven comes in right then - Borg shields. So they all go back to their places after a stirring speech from Janeway with dramatic music and no Kes. No, not one sighting.

Poor Jennifer Lien.

"Just how close do we get?" she asks Chakotay. He says there are some barriers they never cross. J/C shippers start to cry a bit.

It all works fine, but Chakotay's the only one who knows what's up. He burns out the deflector, but manages to stop the pulse. They fly off. Brilliant strategy. Then he refuses to explain to Janeway, which is weird because he was fine telling Janeway of the Past.

So now it's time to play... The Voyager Game! Let's start with a ripoff of every cute Alexander moment from TNG at the beginning. All Good Things, obviously, with a generous helping of Night and Caretaker. Fury, for abuse of the Kes character, and a little bit of a ripoff of ever single Voyager episode referenced here, and it makes NO SENSE, just none whatsoever, because it's an anomaly not a sentient being like Q, which means the ship was in a different place and I still say it could have got them home.