 |
||
 EPISODE REVIEWS | ||
 |
Night Airdate: October 14, 1998 Written by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky Directed by: David Livingston File Photo || Mission Log || Opinion Poll Short Take: A thoughtful start to season five that tried to do a lot of things and mostly succeeded Brief Summary: The crew, already stir-crazy, now has to deal with a crazy Janeway Review: The Braga era has begun, and for the most part it's off to a good start. Not Voyager's best by no means, but it had more good stuff than the old stuff that made Voyager such a tiring show to watch. "Night" wasn't tiring at all, despite the premise. It was meant to be slow and methodical, examining the crew - well, mostly Janeway - in very simple situation. And as with all Braga episodes, like 'em or not, it created a mood that made the show worth watching even if it bombed. Voyager around season two had horrible plots. Stupid, stupid episodes. Nowadays the episodes aren't exactly great ideas, but they tend to be helped by the fact that they try to frame what happens around character decisions. What happens may not always make complete sense, as was in the case of "Night," but when you have characters acting certain ways and keep them acting that way consistently over time, you create a show worth watching. Voyager is moving in that direction. Was that an insult? In "Night" we got an episode based on Janeway's guilt about what happened to get the ship lost in the first place. It's about time she felt guilty. I'm not concerned about the fact that it happened now. After all, the "night" space offered nothing to do, meaning she couldn't occupy her time with big decisions. She had to think about past big decisions. On that front, everything's ok. The part that didn't make much sense was Janeway completely isolating herself. Sure, she's moody, but completely shutting yourself off when you're the captain seems odd. Janeways' taken a lot of heat in the past from fans (I act as if she is a real person) for how she acts. This didn't help, and it didn't *feel* right either. Her moodiness was made an issue because of the unfortunate situation of the these precious little Night aliens. They looked like raisins. Then again, they're better than the bad guy, Emck, who looked lke Baron Harkonnen and made me think of Luten Plunder from Captain Planet (Let's see, Tuvok's Earth, Torres is Wind, Tom Fire, Seven Water, and Kim Heart. Let your powers combine... oh, sorry.) - in other words, a pretty one dimensional guy, with a couple of good lines that pointed out that he was driven by money. I suppose it is nice to know that Voyager's writers have a social conscience and don't like the illegal dumping of toxic waste. Not exactly the best "message" Voyager has had, though I suppose it's better than no message at all. The situation forced Janeway into considering closing the wormhole from Malon space to help the Night aliens. A good little twist that caught me by surprise there, for a moment at least. Janeway didn't want her crew to suffer again, so I can understand her decision. And, schmaltzy as it was (at least there was no group hug), I can understand the crew not letting her. Of course, as with all Voyager episodes, we get a solution pulled out of the ol' vortex that solves everything. The polluter is foiled because of his unsafe techniques (yes, Neelix, "poetic justice."). I hate solutions that are basically just announced. Of course, they coudl have taught a Night alien to close the wormhole, or left a shuttle on autopilot behind to do it... unfortunately, like all Voyager episodes this own is an easy one to skewer and MIST. Especially the science. The same ol' Complete Lack of Actual Physics (CLAP) which I won't go into here. I'm a science illiterate, but it certainly irritatess me to see Voyag er screw up on the microscopic level on up, especially when, if done right, these stories could be better. Take for example these Night aliens. OK, YOU CAN'T EVOLVE IN A REGION OF SPACE WITHOUT ANY PLANETS. Hell, evolving without LIGHT, HEAT, RADIATION, ETC, is hard enough, but you got to have somewhere to evolve to actually evolve! My point? Well, if these Night aliens were outsiders, immigrants if you will, the Malon could snidely dismiss them and it would be a lot more relevant to us here in America. At least the episode mostly focused on the characters. Not only does a character driven show make for more interesting Trek, IMHO, but it's also harder to screw up Tom and Belanna arguing. It's good to see that with a collapsing network and sagging ratings Paramount can still afford to have a brand new holodeck set that will no doubt be used all of four times. Unlike the daVinci set, this one can't even be used as a place to contemplate, and it certainly can't be a gang hangout. It's very well done, mind you - I'm just not sure if it has a point, other than perhaps "seeing how the twentieth century saw the future." Well, it looks good... The scene using the set, however, was much better than I expected it to be. Someone else pointed out that it had its good touches of humor, and in retrospect I agree. Seven casually taking out the 'bot was pretty darn funny. That crazy Seven, always being so sensible! McNeill I feel is always a bit over the top, and giving him the role of Proton doesn't help, I'm afraid. Dr. Chaotica was sufficiently nasty, and I couldn't help but chuckling at the fact that Chaotica's plan to place his planet in Earth's orbit had about as much good science as "Night" did. So, I enjoyed "Night" and liked the fact that it tried a lot of things even if it didn't always work. It needed to be slow. The show really hasn't had a *slow* episode, and this slow approach made the characters and with it the show seem a little more seasoned... with good reason, since it has been four years. This is not to say it didn't try its best to be a run-of-the-mill Voyager episode. The Malon baddie had a good line when he introduced himself by demanding compensation, but he was mainly paint by numbers. And Janeway's decision had its questionable aspects. However, despite claims otherwise, "Night" didn't have sex galore and Braga seems to have an actul direction for this show. Lord knows that after four years of being los,t it could use it. Some short takes: - Two episodes in a row have had the line "We're crossing the threshold!" -Don't even ask me about holodeck losing lights but not the rest of its power. - Neelix's nihilophobia made Garak's characterization in DS9's "Afterimage" look good. Shiver, indeed. - The Doc doesn't exist in a void, people, though I did like his babbling about having an existential moment - Antimatter can't have waste. It's a 1:1 process. Even Wesley knew that. Perhaps the waste was a byproduct of the processes that set up the reaction? Rating: B Next week: Preview's a bit odd... the premise seems gimmicky... but it should be GOOD | |
|
|
||
|
NAVIGATION PADD | ||
| ||
