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 EPISODE REVIEWS | ||
 | "Before
and After" - Week of Apr. 7th - Apr. 11th File Photo
|| Airdate: April
9th, 1997 Written by:
Kenneth Biller Directed by: Allan
Kroeker In Short:
Entertaining and thought provoking, yet somewhat of a rehashing. Brief Summary:
An incident in the future causes Kes to move backward through
time, each instance learning more about the previous leap
bringing with her information about events to come. Review Well from a purely
enjoyment point of view, this episode was thoroughly entertaining
and one of the better Voyager shows. A good temporal paradox
story is always thought provoking and exciting, especially when
future alternate timelines are involved. The surface of this show
offers intrigue and excitement, clearly making it one of this
season's highlights. That being said,
upon analyzing "Before and After" my main gripe isn't
necessarily a flaw with the story itself. Rather it lies in that
it's a rehashed combination of "Future Imperfect" (TNG)
and "All Good Things..." (TNG). Although I thought the
story was valid, and am not usually one dislike an episode solely
because of originality (or lack thereof), it really bothered me
here. Almost every time someone tried to verbalize Kes's
predicament, I could hear the words "I'm moving back and
forth... THROUGH time..." on the tip of everyone's tongue! The other major
gripe is indirect as well, being the simple temporal paradoxical
nature of the show. This was one of those episodes where the
event putting everything into motion hasn't occurred yet. Thus,
if Kes were to go back to a point where she advised against
certain actions that kept such an event (her exposure to
chroniton particles and being placed in the bio-temporal chamber)
from happening, the entire episode wouldn't have taken place,
becoming moot. Frankly, I understand that this isn't the point of
the paradox and that it in itself is what lends to an intriguing
dilemma, and if this hadn't been done before in numerous other
episodes I wouldn't have cared to the extent that I did. At least
"Before and After" doesn't completely refute the
possibility of the events Kes witnessed actually occurring, (for
instance by stating that such events are part of an alternate
timeline created by her experience, and thus will not occur in
the "correct" Voyager timeline). So there may be some
repercussions from this episode such as avoiding the "Year
of Hell," unlike many temporal paradox shows where the reset
button is pushed frantically at the end. The only real
story related problem with "Before and After" is the
slowness that it started with. The first twenty minutes were
really slow and had too much predictable and plain dialogue.
Aside from that some minor things bugged me slightly such as why
Kes lives nine human years and looks like a late seventies to
early eighty-year-old human woman in her ninth year. Wouldn't Kes
be displaying signs of aging already after three years? Where are
such signs? Secondly, when Kes was having her chroniton levels
lowered in her correct time, the plot afterwards became overly
predictable. You could sit and think for a moment and know by the
first "post-correct-time" shift that the episode would
end there. Although a logical path, it was too run-of-the-mill. The Doctor in my
opinion continues to steal the show with his scenes. I don't know
if it's the way he's written, Bob Picardo's acting, or a combo of
the two, but the Doctor certainly livens up every scene he is a
part of. I found particularly amusing the constant arrogance of
his character in each time, complimenting himself on experiments
he was yet to conjure up. His choice of names was amusing and
certainly fit his character. His hair in the future was a nice
touch as well, making for good humor: Kes, "Doctor, you've
lost your hair!" The Doc, "I beg your pardon!" What made this
episode entertaining was the foreshadowing given by Kes, and then
seeing the events that she was told about in the future. Good
examples were the "Year of Hell," the deaths of Janeway
and B'Leanna, the relationship between Paris and B'Leanna, and
the Doctor's offline months. Frankly, Tom and Kes simply don't
have the chemistry and their marriage was one thing that seemed
very out of sync. To wrap up:
- The story here
wasn't as successful as the writer's chance to give Voyager a
face-lift for the sake of fun. - It's nice to see
the "Kirk & Spock" exchanges portrayed through
Neelix and Tuvok, especially after the events in
"Rise." - Torpedoes in a
state of temporal flux? All I have to say is.... VERY COOL!
Although I must say that I hope they don't start relying on those
fake CGI space shots and explosions, they make the show look like
B5 (not a crack on B5 mind you.) Writing:
Nothing new, nothing phenomenal, pretty average. Directing:
No notable scenes come to mind, mainly because of the nature of
the script. Acting: No
real stellar performances, but if I had to choose I'd say Robert
Picardo did the best job, as usual. Rating: 5.5
out of 10 Quote "I havn't
made one of these [birthday cakes] since, well, since I became
security officer!" "Perhaps you
would like to relinquish your commission and return to the scene
of your previous triumphs." [Laughter] "You keep
working on that sense of humor Commander Vulcan... you'll get it
one day." [Laughter] -Neelix teaches
Tuvok a thing or two about "come-backs." Next Week:
Oh yippy, more reruns! We've really gotta hand it to the guys at
UPN, they certainly know how to keep fans pleased! Discuss This
Episode and/or Review in the Fan Comm Link Discussion Board! | |
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