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Demon File Photo || Mission Log Exorcising "Demon"
Airdate: May 6, 1998 Written by: Ken Biller (teleplay); Andre Bormanis (story) Directed by: Anson Williams In short: Ugh, a boring story, bad acting, and those plot holes... Brief Summary: Confused and an embarassment to science Brief Summary:Voyager must land on a "Demon" class world for deuterium, but gets stuck with blob people and a really bad plot Review: Voyager does 26 episodes a year. It's a Trek tradition that for the most part has worked for DS9, with the exception of a few Ferengi comedies that I argue are made bad intentionally. Voyager, quite frankly, needs to drop to 22 episodes a year. "Demon" coming so soon after "Unforgettable" shows that this somewhat undermanned staff can't handle 26 episodes a year. The actors probably can't either, but most of them are so bad that the Voyager job is probably the only one they can get, so they begrudgingly accept it. It doesn't matter if the episode is bad; UPN wants it and people will watch it. As a result, we get "Demon." Why am I complaining? Well, "Demon" just in general reeked. Now, it didn't provoke me to launch an attack on the fawning Voyager fandom on Usenet like one certain reviewer (geez Jamahl!), but having given it the obligatory rewatching I can't help but scratch my head and ask, "Why was this episode made?" "Demon" was a mess of a show that tried to do too much - give us glitzy effects, give every actor a chunky scene, and then top it off with a bottled melodilemma about sentient life at the episode's end. It came off as mindless diversion, an episode with a couple of catchy and actually rather well-written conversations with a nifty idea and an ethics question tacked on to make it an episode of Star Trek, or at least Trek's bastardization, Voyager. So why was it made? Andre Bormanis, the show's "science" adviser who has a story credit here, in an interview said he was glad they did this episode because it gave them a chance to show how life can be created in strange and exotic ecosystems/biomes/lithospheres/insert technobabble here. The problem is, that episode had none of that, save some odd mention of Tom and Kim being "bioformed" for no sensible reason. We have no idea why the pools of deuterium even reacted to light, nonetheless copied DNA (and memory! and achieved consciousness. The episode simply put had no purpose, and it really ires me because it could have potentially done something very, very interesting. On the subject of DNA... once again the magical molecule is back, slicing, dicing, and making curly fries. Another Voyager episode chocked full of plot holes and inconsistencies, mostly thanks to DNA. First, the premise... hello, you mean to tell me that they didn't know they were almost out of gas? And why can't they replicate deuterium, a mere isotope of hydrogen, when they can make beach towels? And I want even touch landing the ship. "Blue mode," hee hee. Actually, I will. What was the point of that? Because it looks cool? I'm all for great FX, but they need to have a point. These didn't, and frankly they didn't look good either. In fact, much of the show had no point and did not look good. Belanna and Vorik in engineering... huh? No point to that scene. Same wih Belanna volunteering Seven. To the show's defense, I actually thought the Neelix-in-sick-bay B-plot actually worked, at least to a point. The Neelix/Tuvok conversation was off, but having Neelix interact with the Doctor was actually funny in places, and smartly written, with some good dialogue and good interplay between both sides. Yet, it was like one of those pointless B- plots that DS9 does ever so often, and in an episode full of pointlessness, it only made matters worse. Another smartly written sequence involved Tom and Kim (note, I did not use his first name, as the Ensign is a big nobody.) interacting. Garrett Wang was actually acting, and indeed it was nice to put Tuvok in his place! OK, the bicycle joke reeked, but I think it was suppose to, and anyway the friendly game of one-upsmanship going on between the two seemed like real character interaction for once. Some of what they were saying was actually funny, and I didn't mind the heavyhandedness of the HARRY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT sequence, since Harry actually recounting all those bad episodes from the past made sense in context. Bad episodes from the past... Harry will be reminescing about this one too I guess. It's a shame, because if they had sliced off some of the fat they could have gotten a lean, mean story. Everything just seemed so rushed in the end... Janeway came off as evil, which she very well may be, then too hasty in agreeing to terms, which characterizes her as well also. We never got a good, soild explanation of what was going on. The blob, which wasn't yet sentient, had a connection to pseudo-Harry and pseudo-Tom, or something like that, and they were willing to destroy Voyager for it, being good sympathetic sentients that we must get all ethical about. Everything boiled down to a bad rehash of various TNG episodes like "Home Soil." "Demon" had no tension, no great question of right or wrong... just a new alien of the week that Starfleet guidelines must be applied to. Ho-hum. The end was cool, I will concede. So, the episode was a class-C entry into the Trek universe, or what the reviewer calls a "crap" class episode. It's characterized by bad writing, noxious plot twists that make your stomach churn, and a sense of relief once you leave it. Avoid at all costs. Some short takes: -Why couldn't Neelix bring the @#$% book? That annoyed me worse than the Rabbit not getting Trix. -Thermimotic radiation?!? -Landing Voyager was a lousy gimmick. How exactly did that ship on critically low power get back out of the atmosphere? -So, um, Tom and Harry did survive in the 500 Kelvin heat with suit ruptures? How, when if their primary systems couldn't handles the heat in the first place? -By the way, it is 500 Kelvin. No degrees involved (certainly I wonder if Bormanis has an actual degree...) Quote:"You know what they say about your life flashing before oyur eyes? Well, it's true. I was finally getting past puberty when I regained consciousness." -Tom (I bet he had a really interesting puberty, too) Rating: C-. I'm still not sure what it was getting to. Next week: "One," a singular sensation? Discuss This Episode and/or Review in the Fan Comm Link Discussion Board! | |||
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