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 EPISODE REVIEWS | ||
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Relativity Review by Steve Perry Airdate: May 12, 1999 Written by: Everybody Directed by: Allan Eastman Short Take: A little too cute for its own good Brief Summary: Seven goes through time to find a bomb Note:Yes, this is late. But forgive me, as I did not see this until last Thursday. Review:Ok, this was a little *too* cute. Time travel can be a mess, but I think this was more of a mess than even the writers were intending. Either they had some intriguing ideas and they got lost in writing, or they threw some intriguing looking things at us to make us forget what a mess this was. I can't help but see through Voyager appearing at Utopia Planitia, for example. I mean, it looked nice, and I would have enjoyed an episode there, but what did it actually serve, besides give us time to reminisce? I think having the bomb planted during construction would have been quite sensible. But it wasn't. At the end of it, I'm simply exhausted. We hopped so many timelines that I had no idea what was going on. I'm sure the Lt. on the timeship Relativity didn't either. Talk up cleaning up timelines! Maybe someone should have cleaned up the script! I'm not sure what this episode was getting at. Time travel can be fun, and very exciting. Let's be honest, Trek needs an episode like this every once and awhile. But this one had problems. The episode made fun of the various paradoxes and how they are so difficult to explain. But how do you explain what was going on here? How were there three Braxtons? How was the bomb on Voyager in spacedock, but not on it later, during the attack by the Kazon? Agh! The plot needed to be simpler, about one time jump, I think. As it was, I could never get how they could pick up one Seven, kill her, then pick up another, and act like this was all a big deal. Pick her up forever for all I care. The thing is, the potential was there. In the end, the episode's twists weren't about time travel, but about Captain Braxton. There was no clever puzzle here, no loop preordained like we almost got in Timeless. Or, for that matter, no great characterization as in Timeless, or intriguing issue like in Year of Hell. Voyager got in trouble and it turned out Braxton was behind it. While I applaud the writers for simply remembering he's around, including that clever twist about him being arrested for crimes he WILL commit, it almost got lost in al the time jumping and chasing around ping pong tables. All the episode needed to do was build on that. Sure, give it a loop. Maybe do something weird, like having an alt-Seven stuck forever in the past on Mars. That would have been more interesting that what we got, simply because of the irony of Seven being home in some form while her real version is still quite lost. I like to prescribe my own solutions to episodes, but time travel ones usually leave me at a loss. Maybe that's the point. It shouldn't have to give little ol' me a brain cramp to watch. The fact I can't make head or tails of Relativity suggsts that, despite the flash, *something* isn't right. Some short takes: - Lt. Carrey! Back for this??? - Slick set for the Relativity. Why does Voyager get all the good toys? - The bomb's idea was cool, even if it had a "Timescape" from TNG feel to it. Rating: C+ | |
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