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Retrospect File Photo
|| Don't Look Back in Anger, Seven
Airdate: February 25, 1998 Written by: Bryan Fuller and Lisa Klink (Teleplay); Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman (Story) Directed by: Jesus Salvador Trevino Short Take: A shakily handled premise only saved because it pulled few punches with regards to characterization Brief Summary:Seven's erratic behavior and a probe of her subconscious leads to charges that an arms dealer stole nanoprobes from her Review:Good Lord, look above! This show had four writers! How do you write an episode as bland as this one with four writers! Especially when this one wasn't terribly original? "Retrospect" was a good idea for a run of the mill episode, despite the fact that once again we get Another Seven Story (ASS). It had two wonderfully controversial issues to play around with - regression therapy and crime and punishment in general, with rape maybe or maybe not thrown in for good measure. Even the use of Seven was justified, since she did have the traumatic experiences with Borg. But it handled the issues almost too paint-by-numbers, and the result is that a lot of things that needed to be said weren't, and the result is a very muddled and potentially troubling message. Part of the problem is, I'm not sure whether not there was enough within the show to create the fuss by Seven. Seven has had nanoprobes drawn out of her before... are we to equate that with sex? The writers should have toned down the "violation" aspect a ton. The preview from last week, which did imply that one of Voyager's crewmen raped her, didn't help either. I think if Seven had handled the situation a little better, it would not have been a problem. We could still have had her exploring emotions like anger without the word "rape" floating in the background. Had the fact Kovin might have stolen Borg technology been a little more pronounced, the episode could have avoided the issue by focusing on that as well. Especially since the writers couldn't handle the subject matter. Basically, Voyager is in a no win situation. You can't make Seven right using regression therapy, because that is unreliable. You can't make her wrong, since that says rape victims cry wolf. As Garak would say, the lesson would be to have Seven tell a better lie, one not involving pseudo-rape, but still traumatic. Or just make someone, such as Tuvok, skeptical of Seven from the start, so the truth could be upheld all throughout the "rush to judgment." Then make someone else, say Janeway, be very ympathetic yet also very wary of it all. Law and Order has people lying about far more serious crimes all the time, and it won an Emmy. The key is treating it gingerly, and recognizing it is a sensitive issue - something Voyager's writers didn't do, despite several drafts and FOUR WRITERS. There's another thing holding this show back. It was boring. It just seemed to dwell a very large amount of time on an investigation that led to nowhere, and unlike Law and Order, there was no snappy dialogue along the way to make things interesting. A detective show needs to be unpredictable, and this one was not. It was inevitable that there would be a mistake and someone would die, and that hurt the episode greatly. It's one of the few episodes of Voyager over the past two years I was bored while watching the first time. The character work for Seven did work, but it could have been so much more. This could have been a springboard for Seven doing what the writers failed to do for her in "The Raven" - really deal with what the Borg did to her. That didn't happen. Still, there was another opportunity to do something nifty, and that wa with the regression therapy sequence. Why not make it a little ambiguous and have Borg undertones to the story Seven is relating? For that matter, be a little edgy, and make it look like that it is *possible* that Seven is making this up as she goes. That would have brought the boom down on regression therapy much better by showing why it is wrong - it relies too much on parts of the subconscious that extend too far back in time to be trusted with relation to very recent memories. The one truly *excellent* part to this episode was that it did maintain, almost too openly, that good people make mistakes. Holodoc's work was particularly well done, as his motivations for helping Seven were not only out of concern for a patient, but for her in particular, since she has abilities above and beyond other humans like he does. I felt Holodoc's desire to essentially delete himself was a little too much, but overall he was quite good. Both here and "Revulsion" have established him as almost too eager to protect those, who like him, are different from normal humans. One other thing did impress me though. There wasn't any major plot holes (I already know someone will disprove me on this...). Kovin's motivations seemed real, and his "OJ flight" was understandable considering his worries about Voyager. In terms of actual dynamics, the show made sense, setting the problem up nicely with Seven's erratic behavior to begin with. But as I said, the episode just didn't want to move, and when it finally did, I knew it would end with Kovin's death. In retrospect, it need more 'splosions. "Retrospect" then was a hit as much as it was a miss, and probably the show's biggest blown opportunity to do something powerful this year. It has all the aspects of a great episode - tragedy, human error, and some controversial issues - but along the way it succumbed to what many episodes by committee fall prey to - a muddled message. Which, considering the subject matter, was not a terribly wise move at all by the Voyager writing staff. We're pretty darn sure they don't like rape, and the episode made it clear that what happened to Seven was bad... but they need to let the fans just second guess them with the nitpicks, and not with questions about the show's actual message. Some short takes: - Call me crazy, but the weapons dealer looked like one of the men fighting on the Enterprise-E in First Contact. You know, he one who complained to Worf on the bridge. - How much you want to bet we hear nothing of the weapons Voyager bought again? - Did they even mention the Hirogen? So much for the arc... kinda like Sons and Daughters. Rating: C+ Quote: I don't have a quote. I'm serious. This episode had no funny lines, unless you think "He's worse than a Ferengi is funny." It isn't. Next week: Two episodes, yay! Wait... I have to review both separately. Burn in hell UPN, burn in hell. Discuss This Episode and/or Review in the Fan Comm Link Discussion Board! | |
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