Star Trek: Voyager: Scorpion Rewatch
August 25, 2017 2:58 AM - Season 3, Episode 26 - Subscribe
[Part 1 of 2] Janeway hatches a scheme to get Voyager across a vast gulf of hostile space, all the while escorted by powerful allies who in turn would gain a weapon to help them win a cosmic war. You might call it the best of both worlds.
Memory Alpha floats like a fox, stings like a scorpion:
- Even before it was firmly decided that the Borg would reappear in Star Trek: Voyager (as the series' team of writer-producers were considering if they should, following the defeat of the Borg and their queen in the film Star Trek: First Contact), Brannon Braga had come up with one of the story points of this episode. He noted, "I think it would be cool if the USS Voyager came upon a Borg graveyard, and basically, they're all dead. Obviously, somehow they'll come back to life. I just think it's a cool setting, and it's an interesting pay off to the movie." Evidently, however, the cause of the destruction thereafter changed from being the Borg's defeat in First Contact to Species 8472.
- This installment was not the first choice for the finale of Star Trek: Voyager's third season, a fact that even CGI Effects Director Ron Thornton became aware of (despite his purview being quite different from that of Voyager's writing staff). Originally, "Year of Hell" was planned to be Voyager's third season finale but, with the choice made to shake up the cast in Season 4, this episode was the result. This episode also replaced an undeveloped story idea that featured biomimetic lifeforms, doppelgängers of the Voyager crew, arriving at Earth to much enthusiastic furore before then causing havoc on the planet; although Joe Menosky and Brannon Braga started to collaborate on scripting that plot, dissatisfaction with the writing of the teleplay resulted in the writing duo instead turning their attentions to the "Scorpion" project. The same aliens who appeared in the unfinished script ultimately featured in Season 4's "Demon" and the fifth season installment "Course: Oblivion".
- Voyager co-creator and Executive Producer Jeri Taylor credited Brannon Braga, who Taylor considered to be a highly inventive writer generally, with the idea for Species 8472.
- The sequence wherein multiple Borg cubes pass by Voyager was part of an attempt, made by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky, to feature memorable, large-scale images in the two-parters that were included (at least partly, as in the case of the "Scorpion" two-parter) in Star Trek: Voyager's fourth season. Menosky explained, "We made a conscious effort to put back [in] amazing images that are memorable, and that the character stuff works in and around, things like from 'Scorpion Part I', little Voyager with 15 Borg cubes blasting by. I loved looking at that [....] A big part of this is not just visual effects but images."
- The holographic Leonardo da Vinci was added to the story at the request of Janeway actress Kate Mulgrew. Concerning exactly how she made her contribution to this character concept, Mulgrew offered, "I think it was Brannon Braga who asked, 'Where did art most notoriously meet science in history?' And I said, 'With Leonardo da Vinci.' He said, 'Exactly.'"
- Without auditioning for the role of the holographic Leonardo da Vinci, John Rhys-Davies was offered the part by Star Trek: Voyager's producers. Having been a long-term Star Trek fan, he was delighted to accept the offer.
- Both Kate Mulgrew and Joe Menosky noticed that, by this point in the third season, the character of Janeway and the persona of the actress playing her were seeming to gravitate more towards one another and that this development appeared to be benefiting the portrayal of the Starfleet captain. Menosky commented, "In 'Scorpion Part I' [Janeway] was becoming a little more risk taking, and edgy, and frankly, a little bit more like Kate Mulgrew. I've always said, even Jeri Taylor used to always say, 'if Captain Janeway were only more like Kate, we would have a much better captain on our hands.' For whatever reason, our writing and Kate's kind of freewheeling personality seemed to come together a bit more, at the end of the [third] season." Mulgrew herself remarked that, particularly "towards the end of the season," she made some "very important breakthroughs" with becoming "much more relaxed and more allied with Janeway".
- Garrett Wang was less than pleased about having to play the out-of-action Kim. "I mean, I wasn't too happy that, most of the episode, I was on a bio-bed with green goop on my face," Wang remarked, before loudly echoing of the writers (wearing a big grin on his face), "'Who else but Kim needs to be tortured in the bio-bed?', you know? No one else, just Kim."
- After Garrett Wang portrayed a reaction to seeing the approach of the massed Borg cubes that fly by Voyager, his fellow actors jokingly mimicked him. Wang commented, "I notice onscreen on my sensors that all these Borg cubes are coming upon us, but they don't even stop for us [....] And my lines are like, 'Captain, I'm reading one – no, three – no, five – no, seven Borg cubes.' And the way I said it, I said, 'Capt-taiiiin....'" Wang laughed. He then continued, "I really extended out the 'Captain.' So from then on, [Robert] Beltran and [Robert Duncan] McNeill would always go, 'Cap-taiiiin...'"
- Performing the scene wherein Janeway speaks with the Borg Collective while aboard one of the Borg cubes represented a scary challenge for Kate Mulgrew, who consequently had to do several takes of the scene. To aid her performance, Mulgrew imagined she was in an extremely contained space, surrounded by hordes of serial killers. This footage was filmed by Dan Curry's second unit team. "They put you on the stage with just a blue screen behind you, and they say, 'This is the Borg hive. You are surrounded by them. You can go four inches this way. You can go two inches this way, and forward no more than an inch and a half," Mulgrew told an audience at the 1997 Pasadena Grand Slam Convention, "and meanwhile you play the three-page scene, and you are jeopardizing not only yourself, but the assimilation of your entire species [....] I played the scene with so much quiet that I scared myself!"
- This episode marks the beginning of a development of tension in the relationship between Janeway and Chakotay that culminates in the latter character considering mutiny in the season 6 premiere, "Equinox, Part II". Kate Mulgrew was thankful for the introduction of this tension, describing it as "a very good thing to have."
- One particular scene that was very popular among the producers was the one in which Janeway realizes Chakotay does not agree with her. "I think it's one of the best scenes we've ever had," Jeri Taylor raved. Brannon Braga similarly enthused that the same scene was "a great scene".
- One fan criticism aimed at this episode was that many aspects of it looked like "rip-offs" of certain elements from Babylon 5. These likenesses included, from this installment, Species 8472 and their bio-ships as well as the quantum singularities used as interdimensional rifts, as compared to the Shadow creatures, Vorlon ships and the Shadow phase-in effect from Babylon 5. Adam Lebowitz responded to these criticisms, saying, "At no point when we were working on 'Scorpion' did *any* of us here at Foundation notice similarities between it and B5."
- Brannon Braga was ultimately very pleased with this episode. "I think it's just classic Star Trek," he enthused, shortly prior to the episode's initial airing. "It's a show with a lot of action, a great new alien race, and lots of Borg, but it's also got a real moral dilemma in it." He also included this episode among a few examples of third season Voyager installments that he thought were good (the other episodes being "Distant Origin" and "Unity").
- Taylor said of this episode's ratings, "Our numbers at the end of the year and for the season finale exceeded our numbers last year, so there looks to be an upward kind of trend."
- The pile of dismembered Borg seen on the disabled cube was actually a twelve-inch pile of Playmates Toys action figures. Dan Curry recalled, "We didn't have the budget or the time to create full-scale body chunks, because of the cost and time it would take to do that. So, I asked our licensing department for a bunch of Borg toy action figures [....] And kudos to the person who sculpted those toys, because the detail – especially the facial detail – was so good that I was able to take the toy action figures, cut them up with a Dremel cutting tool, and then I stacked them up with hot glue and shot them at home against a little blue screen cove.
- The robot that the holographic Leonardo is working on, in this episode, is based on a real work that Leonardo created. Although the final drawings of the robot are lost (if they ever existed), preliminary sketches have been input into computer simulations that confirm that the sketches were indeed meant to be of a mechanical man. While the sketches were known of, it was not until the 1950s that a professor from the University of California realized what they were meant to be.
- This episode marks the third time in Star Trek that an end-of-season cliffhanger story revolved around the Borg, the previous occasions being TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds" and TNG: "Descent". Coincidentally, the former of those two episodes was at the end of TNG's third season, just as this episode is at the end of Voyager's third season.
- When Janeway references Captain Amasov in this episode, it is an in-joke reference to Isaac Asimov, famous 20th century science-fiction writer, cybernetics supporter, and friend of Gene Roddenberry.
- Following this episode's first airing, rumors circulated that two particular members of Voyager's main cast – namely, Garrett Wang and Kes actress Jennifer Lien – would be written out of the series at the start of the fourth season. The fact that this third season finale concludes with a cliffhanger ending in which Kim is apparently near death made Garrett Wang seem more doomed for departure than Lien did. However, it was Lien alone who left the series following this season finale (specifically, in Season 4's second installment, "The Gift").
"In their collective state, the Borg are utterly without mercy, driven by one will alone: the will to conquer. They are beyond redemption, beyond reason."
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard, log entry read by Captain Janeway
"It's nothing to be ashamed about, echoing the greats. Ensign Hickman in astrophysics does a passable Janeway."
"If we manage to survive the next few days, I'm going to have a chat with Ensign Hickman. Imitating the captain – surely that violates some kind of Starfleet protocol."
- Chakotay and Janeway
"Fight it, Harry! That's an order!"
- Janeway to Kim, while he lies in sickbay infected by the alien cells
"There's a story I heard as a child, a parable, and I never forgot it. A scorpion was walking along the bank of a river, wondering how to get to the other side. Suddenly, he saw a fox. He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river. The fox said 'No. If I do that, you'll sting me and I'll drown.' The scorpion assured him, 'If I did that, we'd both drown.' So, the fox thought about it, and finally agreed. So, the scorpion climbed up on his back, and the fox began to swim, but halfway across the river, the scorpion stung him. As the poison filled his veins, the fox turned to the scorpion and said, 'Why did you do that? Now you'll drown too.' 'I couldn't help it,' said the scorpion, 'it's my nature'."
- Chakotay, to Janeway as he objects to her plan to ally with the Borg
"There are times, Caterina, when I find myself transfixed by a shadow on the wall, or the splashing of water against a stone. I stare at it, the hours pass, the world around me drops away... replaced by worlds being created and destroyed by my imagination."
- The holographic Leonardo da Vinci
"Think good thoughts."
- Janeway, while Voyager is being scanned by the Borg
"The weak will perish!"
- Species 8472, as stated by Kes from one of her telepathic encounters
Poster's Log:
So, you know how we keep talking about how the Janeway character was so ill-defined, so all over the map in terms of how she might react to a given situation from one episode to the next? Well, it was in this rewatch, of this episode, that I think I nailed down not only (A) one Janeway trait which IIRC is pretty consistent through the series and (B) one of the big things that bugs me about the character. And it is this: When someone opposes her, particularly a subordinate, she makes it about her.
Look at that scene where Chakotay says the alliance is a mistake. What the show SHOULD have done was have Janeway give him a curt little "you're-dismissed" nod, then after he leaves the room, say to herself quietly "Then I guess I really am alone." But she says it TO HIS FRICKIN' FACE.
And, lest you attribute this to those two characters' particular Special Bathtub Relationship, let's not forget all the previous occasions (here was a big one) where somebody came to her ready room after doing something bad or defiant, and her whole demeanor is "*I* am hurt" and her whole focus is on "*I* am disappointed." I don't have any military experience, but I gotta think that this just is not how you captain.
I could imagine a counterargument that, well, since Voyager's stranded, Janeway has become extra-protective and considers the crew her family (she said so at some point this season IIRC) and all that. But thinking of the crew as a family is one thing; using guilt as a blunt instrument like a Catholic grandmother in order to coerce compliance is another.
I'm not saying that this alone makes her a bad captain (although this may be one of the reasons why some people say so). She certainly demonstrates that she's capable of the self-sacrifice, and of making the tough decisions, that come with the big chair. But it seems to be a consistent personality trait of hers, and it's a complicating factor. I think it may have been intentional, given how consistent it is (though FWIW, the "Voyager Bible" document makes no reference to "Elizabeth Janeway can't handle even minor betrayals well" or anything). But if my suspicion is correct and it was intentional, I don't know if it was a smart call for this, Trek's first major female captain, to have that particular personality trait. It's been noted at least once before in these discussions that, for a show with a female captain and a female executive producer, it seems at times to be kind of lost in terms of handling major female characters.
Anyway, back to the episode. 8472 are pretty effective villains—so far. (Kim getting the Dijon Face Ropes is pretty great.) But I still maintain that 8472 should have been introduced many episodes after bringing the Borg into the show. We started to discuss this before, but the whole notion of "a species that's even more powerful than the Borg" just…kind of feels like it's meant to impress 14-year-old boys. (And don't tell me they weren't thinking in those terms!)
And even if I think the Janeway-Chakotay conflict is a little awkward w/r/t Janeway's character, and maybe a little forced overall, it's a good story development in the sense that it really puts Voyager into the Borg-8472 game. As a result of that (*and* the fact that this two-parter is just jam-packed with STUFF, arguably a bit overpacked), you can scarcely tear your eyes away.
Other points: Tuvok gets some great line reads in here; I love the Hellraiser-esque Dead Borg Column (though I agree with Bernd that it would've been nice to revisit that weird image somehow…not necessarily explain it, but at least have our crew speculate about it?); and while I don't know if I'm totally on board with the da Vinci hologram (more on that next season), it was weird and ballsy to introduce him under these circumstances.
So while I wouldn't put this in my PERsonal top 10 of the series—on account of it being jumbled and imbalanced and being one of the worse examples of what one of us previously referred to as Villain Decay—I understand and accept that it earns a general place of esteem and significance for the series.
Poster's Log, Supplemental:
Is it my imagination, or is there something deeply weird about the moment where Janeway says "Think good thoughts?" Just, I dunno: her line read, her expression, the camera movement. I think it's weird in a good way, but it does distract me every time, and I can't tell if it was deliberately weird or not. I'd almost think they did it so weirdly on purpose if it was, say, the first season, or a series that had previously shown itself willing to get weird for no reason.
P.S.: Forgive the late post! Stuff came up yesterday when I had intended to post it.
Memory Alpha floats like a fox, stings like a scorpion:
- Even before it was firmly decided that the Borg would reappear in Star Trek: Voyager (as the series' team of writer-producers were considering if they should, following the defeat of the Borg and their queen in the film Star Trek: First Contact), Brannon Braga had come up with one of the story points of this episode. He noted, "I think it would be cool if the USS Voyager came upon a Borg graveyard, and basically, they're all dead. Obviously, somehow they'll come back to life. I just think it's a cool setting, and it's an interesting pay off to the movie." Evidently, however, the cause of the destruction thereafter changed from being the Borg's defeat in First Contact to Species 8472.
- This installment was not the first choice for the finale of Star Trek: Voyager's third season, a fact that even CGI Effects Director Ron Thornton became aware of (despite his purview being quite different from that of Voyager's writing staff). Originally, "Year of Hell" was planned to be Voyager's third season finale but, with the choice made to shake up the cast in Season 4, this episode was the result. This episode also replaced an undeveloped story idea that featured biomimetic lifeforms, doppelgängers of the Voyager crew, arriving at Earth to much enthusiastic furore before then causing havoc on the planet; although Joe Menosky and Brannon Braga started to collaborate on scripting that plot, dissatisfaction with the writing of the teleplay resulted in the writing duo instead turning their attentions to the "Scorpion" project. The same aliens who appeared in the unfinished script ultimately featured in Season 4's "Demon" and the fifth season installment "Course: Oblivion".
- Voyager co-creator and Executive Producer Jeri Taylor credited Brannon Braga, who Taylor considered to be a highly inventive writer generally, with the idea for Species 8472.
- The sequence wherein multiple Borg cubes pass by Voyager was part of an attempt, made by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky, to feature memorable, large-scale images in the two-parters that were included (at least partly, as in the case of the "Scorpion" two-parter) in Star Trek: Voyager's fourth season. Menosky explained, "We made a conscious effort to put back [in] amazing images that are memorable, and that the character stuff works in and around, things like from 'Scorpion Part I', little Voyager with 15 Borg cubes blasting by. I loved looking at that [....] A big part of this is not just visual effects but images."
- The holographic Leonardo da Vinci was added to the story at the request of Janeway actress Kate Mulgrew. Concerning exactly how she made her contribution to this character concept, Mulgrew offered, "I think it was Brannon Braga who asked, 'Where did art most notoriously meet science in history?' And I said, 'With Leonardo da Vinci.' He said, 'Exactly.'"
- Without auditioning for the role of the holographic Leonardo da Vinci, John Rhys-Davies was offered the part by Star Trek: Voyager's producers. Having been a long-term Star Trek fan, he was delighted to accept the offer.
- Both Kate Mulgrew and Joe Menosky noticed that, by this point in the third season, the character of Janeway and the persona of the actress playing her were seeming to gravitate more towards one another and that this development appeared to be benefiting the portrayal of the Starfleet captain. Menosky commented, "In 'Scorpion Part I' [Janeway] was becoming a little more risk taking, and edgy, and frankly, a little bit more like Kate Mulgrew. I've always said, even Jeri Taylor used to always say, 'if Captain Janeway were only more like Kate, we would have a much better captain on our hands.' For whatever reason, our writing and Kate's kind of freewheeling personality seemed to come together a bit more, at the end of the [third] season." Mulgrew herself remarked that, particularly "towards the end of the season," she made some "very important breakthroughs" with becoming "much more relaxed and more allied with Janeway".
- Garrett Wang was less than pleased about having to play the out-of-action Kim. "I mean, I wasn't too happy that, most of the episode, I was on a bio-bed with green goop on my face," Wang remarked, before loudly echoing of the writers (wearing a big grin on his face), "'Who else but Kim needs to be tortured in the bio-bed?', you know? No one else, just Kim."
- After Garrett Wang portrayed a reaction to seeing the approach of the massed Borg cubes that fly by Voyager, his fellow actors jokingly mimicked him. Wang commented, "I notice onscreen on my sensors that all these Borg cubes are coming upon us, but they don't even stop for us [....] And my lines are like, 'Captain, I'm reading one – no, three – no, five – no, seven Borg cubes.' And the way I said it, I said, 'Capt-taiiiin....'" Wang laughed. He then continued, "I really extended out the 'Captain.' So from then on, [Robert] Beltran and [Robert Duncan] McNeill would always go, 'Cap-taiiiin...'"
- Performing the scene wherein Janeway speaks with the Borg Collective while aboard one of the Borg cubes represented a scary challenge for Kate Mulgrew, who consequently had to do several takes of the scene. To aid her performance, Mulgrew imagined she was in an extremely contained space, surrounded by hordes of serial killers. This footage was filmed by Dan Curry's second unit team. "They put you on the stage with just a blue screen behind you, and they say, 'This is the Borg hive. You are surrounded by them. You can go four inches this way. You can go two inches this way, and forward no more than an inch and a half," Mulgrew told an audience at the 1997 Pasadena Grand Slam Convention, "and meanwhile you play the three-page scene, and you are jeopardizing not only yourself, but the assimilation of your entire species [....] I played the scene with so much quiet that I scared myself!"
- This episode marks the beginning of a development of tension in the relationship between Janeway and Chakotay that culminates in the latter character considering mutiny in the season 6 premiere, "Equinox, Part II". Kate Mulgrew was thankful for the introduction of this tension, describing it as "a very good thing to have."
- One particular scene that was very popular among the producers was the one in which Janeway realizes Chakotay does not agree with her. "I think it's one of the best scenes we've ever had," Jeri Taylor raved. Brannon Braga similarly enthused that the same scene was "a great scene".
- One fan criticism aimed at this episode was that many aspects of it looked like "rip-offs" of certain elements from Babylon 5. These likenesses included, from this installment, Species 8472 and their bio-ships as well as the quantum singularities used as interdimensional rifts, as compared to the Shadow creatures, Vorlon ships and the Shadow phase-in effect from Babylon 5. Adam Lebowitz responded to these criticisms, saying, "At no point when we were working on 'Scorpion' did *any* of us here at Foundation notice similarities between it and B5."
- Brannon Braga was ultimately very pleased with this episode. "I think it's just classic Star Trek," he enthused, shortly prior to the episode's initial airing. "It's a show with a lot of action, a great new alien race, and lots of Borg, but it's also got a real moral dilemma in it." He also included this episode among a few examples of third season Voyager installments that he thought were good (the other episodes being "Distant Origin" and "Unity").
- Taylor said of this episode's ratings, "Our numbers at the end of the year and for the season finale exceeded our numbers last year, so there looks to be an upward kind of trend."
- The pile of dismembered Borg seen on the disabled cube was actually a twelve-inch pile of Playmates Toys action figures. Dan Curry recalled, "We didn't have the budget or the time to create full-scale body chunks, because of the cost and time it would take to do that. So, I asked our licensing department for a bunch of Borg toy action figures [....] And kudos to the person who sculpted those toys, because the detail – especially the facial detail – was so good that I was able to take the toy action figures, cut them up with a Dremel cutting tool, and then I stacked them up with hot glue and shot them at home against a little blue screen cove.
- The robot that the holographic Leonardo is working on, in this episode, is based on a real work that Leonardo created. Although the final drawings of the robot are lost (if they ever existed), preliminary sketches have been input into computer simulations that confirm that the sketches were indeed meant to be of a mechanical man. While the sketches were known of, it was not until the 1950s that a professor from the University of California realized what they were meant to be.
- This episode marks the third time in Star Trek that an end-of-season cliffhanger story revolved around the Borg, the previous occasions being TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds" and TNG: "Descent". Coincidentally, the former of those two episodes was at the end of TNG's third season, just as this episode is at the end of Voyager's third season.
- When Janeway references Captain Amasov in this episode, it is an in-joke reference to Isaac Asimov, famous 20th century science-fiction writer, cybernetics supporter, and friend of Gene Roddenberry.
- Following this episode's first airing, rumors circulated that two particular members of Voyager's main cast – namely, Garrett Wang and Kes actress Jennifer Lien – would be written out of the series at the start of the fourth season. The fact that this third season finale concludes with a cliffhanger ending in which Kim is apparently near death made Garrett Wang seem more doomed for departure than Lien did. However, it was Lien alone who left the series following this season finale (specifically, in Season 4's second installment, "The Gift").
"In their collective state, the Borg are utterly without mercy, driven by one will alone: the will to conquer. They are beyond redemption, beyond reason."
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard, log entry read by Captain Janeway
"It's nothing to be ashamed about, echoing the greats. Ensign Hickman in astrophysics does a passable Janeway."
"If we manage to survive the next few days, I'm going to have a chat with Ensign Hickman. Imitating the captain – surely that violates some kind of Starfleet protocol."
- Chakotay and Janeway
"Fight it, Harry! That's an order!"
- Janeway to Kim, while he lies in sickbay infected by the alien cells
"There's a story I heard as a child, a parable, and I never forgot it. A scorpion was walking along the bank of a river, wondering how to get to the other side. Suddenly, he saw a fox. He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river. The fox said 'No. If I do that, you'll sting me and I'll drown.' The scorpion assured him, 'If I did that, we'd both drown.' So, the fox thought about it, and finally agreed. So, the scorpion climbed up on his back, and the fox began to swim, but halfway across the river, the scorpion stung him. As the poison filled his veins, the fox turned to the scorpion and said, 'Why did you do that? Now you'll drown too.' 'I couldn't help it,' said the scorpion, 'it's my nature'."
- Chakotay, to Janeway as he objects to her plan to ally with the Borg
"There are times, Caterina, when I find myself transfixed by a shadow on the wall, or the splashing of water against a stone. I stare at it, the hours pass, the world around me drops away... replaced by worlds being created and destroyed by my imagination."
- The holographic Leonardo da Vinci
"Think good thoughts."
- Janeway, while Voyager is being scanned by the Borg
"The weak will perish!"
- Species 8472, as stated by Kes from one of her telepathic encounters
Poster's Log:
So, you know how we keep talking about how the Janeway character was so ill-defined, so all over the map in terms of how she might react to a given situation from one episode to the next? Well, it was in this rewatch, of this episode, that I think I nailed down not only (A) one Janeway trait which IIRC is pretty consistent through the series and (B) one of the big things that bugs me about the character. And it is this: When someone opposes her, particularly a subordinate, she makes it about her.
Look at that scene where Chakotay says the alliance is a mistake. What the show SHOULD have done was have Janeway give him a curt little "you're-dismissed" nod, then after he leaves the room, say to herself quietly "Then I guess I really am alone." But she says it TO HIS FRICKIN' FACE.
And, lest you attribute this to those two characters' particular Special Bathtub Relationship, let's not forget all the previous occasions (here was a big one) where somebody came to her ready room after doing something bad or defiant, and her whole demeanor is "*I* am hurt" and her whole focus is on "*I* am disappointed." I don't have any military experience, but I gotta think that this just is not how you captain.
I could imagine a counterargument that, well, since Voyager's stranded, Janeway has become extra-protective and considers the crew her family (she said so at some point this season IIRC) and all that. But thinking of the crew as a family is one thing; using guilt as a blunt instrument like a Catholic grandmother in order to coerce compliance is another.
I'm not saying that this alone makes her a bad captain (although this may be one of the reasons why some people say so). She certainly demonstrates that she's capable of the self-sacrifice, and of making the tough decisions, that come with the big chair. But it seems to be a consistent personality trait of hers, and it's a complicating factor. I think it may have been intentional, given how consistent it is (though FWIW, the "Voyager Bible" document makes no reference to "Elizabeth Janeway can't handle even minor betrayals well" or anything). But if my suspicion is correct and it was intentional, I don't know if it was a smart call for this, Trek's first major female captain, to have that particular personality trait. It's been noted at least once before in these discussions that, for a show with a female captain and a female executive producer, it seems at times to be kind of lost in terms of handling major female characters.
Anyway, back to the episode. 8472 are pretty effective villains—so far. (Kim getting the Dijon Face Ropes is pretty great.) But I still maintain that 8472 should have been introduced many episodes after bringing the Borg into the show. We started to discuss this before, but the whole notion of "a species that's even more powerful than the Borg" just…kind of feels like it's meant to impress 14-year-old boys. (And don't tell me they weren't thinking in those terms!)
And even if I think the Janeway-Chakotay conflict is a little awkward w/r/t Janeway's character, and maybe a little forced overall, it's a good story development in the sense that it really puts Voyager into the Borg-8472 game. As a result of that (*and* the fact that this two-parter is just jam-packed with STUFF, arguably a bit overpacked), you can scarcely tear your eyes away.
Other points: Tuvok gets some great line reads in here; I love the Hellraiser-esque Dead Borg Column (though I agree with Bernd that it would've been nice to revisit that weird image somehow…not necessarily explain it, but at least have our crew speculate about it?); and while I don't know if I'm totally on board with the da Vinci hologram (more on that next season), it was weird and ballsy to introduce him under these circumstances.
So while I wouldn't put this in my PERsonal top 10 of the series—on account of it being jumbled and imbalanced and being one of the worse examples of what one of us previously referred to as Villain Decay—I understand and accept that it earns a general place of esteem and significance for the series.
Poster's Log, Supplemental:
Is it my imagination, or is there something deeply weird about the moment where Janeway says "Think good thoughts?" Just, I dunno: her line read, her expression, the camera movement. I think it's weird in a good way, but it does distract me every time, and I can't tell if it was deliberately weird or not. I'd almost think they did it so weirdly on purpose if it was, say, the first season, or a series that had previously shown itself willing to get weird for no reason.
P.S.: Forgive the late post! Stuff came up yesterday when I had intended to post it.
One more thing: the parable of the scorpion is also central to the movie The Crying Game.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:05 AM on August 25, 2017
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:05 AM on August 25, 2017
Particle of the Week: The super-dense DNA of Species 8472 definitely qualifies, as it drives the entire plot this week.
Pointless STO Comparison of the Week: Species 8472 is a major villain faction in Star Trek Online. They're the subject of numerous adventures, an entire reputation track (putting them in company with the Borg), a gambling lockbox that included ships and so on. Indeed, the small vessels depicted here are termed 'Nicor class' in the MMO. I mostly fly bad guy ships in there, so I picked one up. The player versions of their craft are, of course, nerfed down from 'destroy a planet,' but are still both pretty cool looking and powerful for their class.
The one thing STO does with them that I intensely dislike is that they renamed them the Undine - I presume 'Species 8472' was just considered too much a mouthful. (Also, their catchphrase got old fast. 'The weak shall perish' just doesn't have much of a ring to it.)
Ongoing Counts: Rolled forward this week, but I'm waiting for it.
* Maximum Possible Photon Torpedoes: 22.
* Shuttles: Down 4.
* Crew: 142.
* Other: 46 bio-neural gelpacks remaining, maybe 25-50% of the escape pods should be gone at this point.
* Credulity Straining Alpha Quadrant Contacts: 8.
* Janeway's Big Red Button: 2 aborted self-destructs, 1 successful. It's discussed here, but this episode's more setup than payoff, of course.
Notes:
* The Vorlon stuff is pretty obvious.
I believe them when they said they didn't notice, but that's not really a compliment - at the time, there wasn't a lot of competing sci fi on TV. I get that they were busy and not really paying attention to the competition, but it feels weird to me. (I've written a fair number of stories with TVTropes actually open to see what other people have done with various themes though, and I guess I might be in the minority there.)
* Shout out to the Breen.
The Breen are sort of a catchall race to get weird rumors in DS9, and it holds true in Voyager too - they never had bioships when the DS9 guys fought them, but I totally believe people would think they did anyway. (I feel like the Breen have a major disinformation campaign going against the rest of the Alpha Quadrant.)
* Interesting Janeway choices here.
The thing I mostly noticed was how Janeway keeps going to the holodeck to work stuff out. It makes sense in context: she believes a captain's where the buck stops so she can't get too familiar with the crew, and there's no counselor on Voyager. However, I think it does tend to lead to bad habits, having no real people to hash stuff out with. I also think Da Vinci was a weird choice - interesting to see that was at Mulgrew's request. (Seeing historical characters in there always makes me twitch - like, we lack sufficient primary sources to really recreate these characters, so it seems to me that historical fanfic is the national Federation pastime, and it's... weird, really?)
I like the observations you had about that, Cheeses. I hadn't really put all that together myself, but now that you've laid it out, it's like one of those magic eye designs where I can't unsee it. This is well-said in particular:
But thinking of the crew as a family is one thing; using guilt as a blunt instrument like a Catholic grandmother in order to coerce compliance is another.
Like... wow.
Also:
You could make roughly similar arguments about Kirk--he went to extraordinary lengths to bring Spock back, contrary to orders--but even he didn't go mucking around in time or risk giving an extremely deadly adversary critical technology in order to do so.
Back in the day, I always compared Janeway to Kirk. I still feel that way, but the rewatch is certainly making it clearer how and why this happened.
* I love this as a horror story.
Even as the Borg experience their great cycle of nerfing, ('they can't research!' Like, really, show?), their vessels remain horrifying. Species 8472 is also very ambitious for Trek aliens - full CGI instead of funny forehead, and I approve. Indeed, Species 8472 don't come across like Trek aliens at all, so much as some kind of Lovecraftian horror - their entire universe is literally just them, from the space to the ships to the beings, and that's... really pretty creepy, if you think about it. It's not even clear how fluidic space fits into regular Trek cosmology - it's some kind of weird side-realm rather than just a parallel universe. So I always liked them. (I also like them in the MMO, even though they've undergone significant nerfing in there. Watching a bunch of little Nicor destroyers take out a Voth city ship was some quality machinima fanfic.)
* I wish the ethical dilemma were discussed more clearly here.
It's pretty clear that Species 8472 cannot be allowed to rampage across the galaxy freely, but it's also clear the Borg can't be allowed access to their super tech. I wish this was discussed a little more clearly in the Janeway/Chakotay altercation, but we'll get there IIRC.
Anyway, yeah. I liked this episode, and I remember liking the wrap up, even though there's a lot of stuff here I'll wanna dissect more after it's over. (And please, never worry about a late post! I'm just happy you guys are doing these in the first place.)
posted by mordax at 11:29 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Pointless STO Comparison of the Week: Species 8472 is a major villain faction in Star Trek Online. They're the subject of numerous adventures, an entire reputation track (putting them in company with the Borg), a gambling lockbox that included ships and so on. Indeed, the small vessels depicted here are termed 'Nicor class' in the MMO. I mostly fly bad guy ships in there, so I picked one up. The player versions of their craft are, of course, nerfed down from 'destroy a planet,' but are still both pretty cool looking and powerful for their class.
The one thing STO does with them that I intensely dislike is that they renamed them the Undine - I presume 'Species 8472' was just considered too much a mouthful. (Also, their catchphrase got old fast. 'The weak shall perish' just doesn't have much of a ring to it.)
Ongoing Counts: Rolled forward this week, but I'm waiting for it.
* Maximum Possible Photon Torpedoes: 22.
* Shuttles: Down 4.
* Crew: 142.
* Other: 46 bio-neural gelpacks remaining, maybe 25-50% of the escape pods should be gone at this point.
* Credulity Straining Alpha Quadrant Contacts: 8.
* Janeway's Big Red Button: 2 aborted self-destructs, 1 successful. It's discussed here, but this episode's more setup than payoff, of course.
Notes:
* The Vorlon stuff is pretty obvious.
I believe them when they said they didn't notice, but that's not really a compliment - at the time, there wasn't a lot of competing sci fi on TV. I get that they were busy and not really paying attention to the competition, but it feels weird to me. (I've written a fair number of stories with TVTropes actually open to see what other people have done with various themes though, and I guess I might be in the minority there.)
* Shout out to the Breen.
The Breen are sort of a catchall race to get weird rumors in DS9, and it holds true in Voyager too - they never had bioships when the DS9 guys fought them, but I totally believe people would think they did anyway. (I feel like the Breen have a major disinformation campaign going against the rest of the Alpha Quadrant.)
* Interesting Janeway choices here.
The thing I mostly noticed was how Janeway keeps going to the holodeck to work stuff out. It makes sense in context: she believes a captain's where the buck stops so she can't get too familiar with the crew, and there's no counselor on Voyager. However, I think it does tend to lead to bad habits, having no real people to hash stuff out with. I also think Da Vinci was a weird choice - interesting to see that was at Mulgrew's request. (Seeing historical characters in there always makes me twitch - like, we lack sufficient primary sources to really recreate these characters, so it seems to me that historical fanfic is the national Federation pastime, and it's... weird, really?)
I like the observations you had about that, Cheeses. I hadn't really put all that together myself, but now that you've laid it out, it's like one of those magic eye designs where I can't unsee it. This is well-said in particular:
But thinking of the crew as a family is one thing; using guilt as a blunt instrument like a Catholic grandmother in order to coerce compliance is another.
Like... wow.
Also:
You could make roughly similar arguments about Kirk--he went to extraordinary lengths to bring Spock back, contrary to orders--but even he didn't go mucking around in time or risk giving an extremely deadly adversary critical technology in order to do so.
Back in the day, I always compared Janeway to Kirk. I still feel that way, but the rewatch is certainly making it clearer how and why this happened.
* I love this as a horror story.
Even as the Borg experience their great cycle of nerfing, ('they can't research!' Like, really, show?), their vessels remain horrifying. Species 8472 is also very ambitious for Trek aliens - full CGI instead of funny forehead, and I approve. Indeed, Species 8472 don't come across like Trek aliens at all, so much as some kind of Lovecraftian horror - their entire universe is literally just them, from the space to the ships to the beings, and that's... really pretty creepy, if you think about it. It's not even clear how fluidic space fits into regular Trek cosmology - it's some kind of weird side-realm rather than just a parallel universe. So I always liked them. (I also like them in the MMO, even though they've undergone significant nerfing in there. Watching a bunch of little Nicor destroyers take out a Voth city ship was some quality machinima fanfic.)
* I wish the ethical dilemma were discussed more clearly here.
It's pretty clear that Species 8472 cannot be allowed to rampage across the galaxy freely, but it's also clear the Borg can't be allowed access to their super tech. I wish this was discussed a little more clearly in the Janeway/Chakotay altercation, but we'll get there IIRC.
Anyway, yeah. I liked this episode, and I remember liking the wrap up, even though there's a lot of stuff here I'll wanna dissect more after it's over. (And please, never worry about a late post! I'm just happy you guys are doing these in the first place.)
posted by mordax at 11:29 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
The Breen are sort of a catchall race to get weird rumors in DS9, and it holds true in Voyager too - they never had bioships when the DS9 guys fought them, but I totally believe people would think they did anyway.
Well, we have no evidence that their weird-ass asymmetrical ships AREN'T at least partly biological. Or maybe they are, but only on the inside, like Voyager's gelpacks.
(I feel like the Breen have a major disinformation campaign going against the rest of the Alpha Quadrant.)
That is certainly likely, and is supported by canon (Weyoun's remark about how everybody is mistaken about the Breen homeworld's climate).
Species 8472 don't come across like Trek aliens at all, so much as some kind of Lovecraftian horror - their entire universe is literally just them, from the space to the ships to the beings, and that's... really pretty creepy, if you think about it.
Indeed. In their conception, if not necessarily their ultimate resolution, 8472 are definitely the VOY writers going where Trek hasn't really gone before, and good on them for that.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 11:56 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Well, we have no evidence that their weird-ass asymmetrical ships AREN'T at least partly biological. Or maybe they are, but only on the inside, like Voyager's gelpacks.
(I feel like the Breen have a major disinformation campaign going against the rest of the Alpha Quadrant.)
That is certainly likely, and is supported by canon (Weyoun's remark about how everybody is mistaken about the Breen homeworld's climate).
Species 8472 don't come across like Trek aliens at all, so much as some kind of Lovecraftian horror - their entire universe is literally just them, from the space to the ships to the beings, and that's... really pretty creepy, if you think about it.
Indeed. In their conception, if not necessarily their ultimate resolution, 8472 are definitely the VOY writers going where Trek hasn't really gone before, and good on them for that.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 11:56 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Well, we have no evidence that their weird-ass asymmetrical ships AREN'T at least partly biological. Or maybe they are, but only on the inside, like Voyager's gelpacks.
Hmm. Possibly, but that's not much of a comparison point - I would've gone with Tin Man myself. (I'll admit that I just knee-jerk assume it isn't true partly because Tuvok asserted it was though. #BreenTruther.)
Indeed. In their conception, if not necessarily their ultimate resolution, 8472 are definitely the VOY writers going where Trek hasn't really gone before, and good on them for that.
Yeah. I really liked that.
It's also one reason this episode didn't make me feel so bad about Borg Villain decay in this specific instance* - the Borg have some quasi-magical powers (as seen in First Contact, Unity and even Q Who), but they're a logical extension of the science fiction principles understood by the Federation. Even their weird 'heal ship parts via telepathy' thing is a vaguely plausible extrapolation of psionic powers like Kes has displayed - the advanced Ocampans working with Suspiria in Cold Fire could telekinetically manipulate matter on a molecular level, so the Borg might have some facility for it directed at damage control.
Species 8472 is literally from beyond the stars. Making the old playbook irrelevant to them was fine, IMO. They might even be older/stronger than the Voth - I love that there's literally no way to tell.
(* Like Jack, I just went back and watched TBOBW recently and I stand by my overpowering/nerfing theory I laid out at Unity.)
posted by mordax at 1:15 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Hmm. Possibly, but that's not much of a comparison point - I would've gone with Tin Man myself. (I'll admit that I just knee-jerk assume it isn't true partly because Tuvok asserted it was though. #BreenTruther.)
Indeed. In their conception, if not necessarily their ultimate resolution, 8472 are definitely the VOY writers going where Trek hasn't really gone before, and good on them for that.
Yeah. I really liked that.
It's also one reason this episode didn't make me feel so bad about Borg Villain decay in this specific instance* - the Borg have some quasi-magical powers (as seen in First Contact, Unity and even Q Who), but they're a logical extension of the science fiction principles understood by the Federation. Even their weird 'heal ship parts via telepathy' thing is a vaguely plausible extrapolation of psionic powers like Kes has displayed - the advanced Ocampans working with Suspiria in Cold Fire could telekinetically manipulate matter on a molecular level, so the Borg might have some facility for it directed at damage control.
Species 8472 is literally from beyond the stars. Making the old playbook irrelevant to them was fine, IMO. They might even be older/stronger than the Voth - I love that there's literally no way to tell.
(* Like Jack, I just went back and watched TBOBW recently and I stand by my overpowering/nerfing theory I laid out at Unity.)
posted by mordax at 1:15 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
('they can't research!' Like, really, show?)
Voyager often lays it out that the Borg don't really independently learn, they just take, and if they still have questions after taking, then they just take some more until they have answers. That's certainly part of their activity, but we also hear many times in later episodes from Seven of Nine that the Borg do research and study things to improve what they assimilate, and everyone else ignores her when she explains. It usually plays out like:
(I feel like the Breen have a major disinformation campaign going against the rest of the Alpha Quadrant.)
I always thought that the Breen were running their own disinformation campaign against themselves so as to keep their true motives and identities secret. Even Weyoun who wants to be your best friend to win you over to the side of the Dominion and claims to know you better than you know yourself can't even really get close enough to totally figure them out.
posted by Servo5678 at 5:34 PM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Voyager often lays it out that the Borg don't really independently learn, they just take, and if they still have questions after taking, then they just take some more until they have answers. That's certainly part of their activity, but we also hear many times in later episodes from Seven of Nine that the Borg do research and study things to improve what they assimilate, and everyone else ignores her when she explains. It usually plays out like:
CHAKOTAY: "The Borg assimilate everything. What they can't assimilate, they can't understand."So I think it's a little bit of cultural blindness on the humans' side to overlook the Borg's research habits in favor of the shock and fear of assimilation. I can't decide if the show is slyly doing this deliberately as an underlying theme or if the writing is that inconsistent.
SEVEN: "The Borg have launched thousands of research projects upon hundreds of worlds. The combined will of the Collective has solved millions of the universe's greatest mysteries with billions of hours of study and experimentation."
CHAKOTAY: "Yep, they can only assimilate."
(I feel like the Breen have a major disinformation campaign going against the rest of the Alpha Quadrant.)
I always thought that the Breen were running their own disinformation campaign against themselves so as to keep their true motives and identities secret. Even Weyoun who wants to be your best friend to win you over to the side of the Dominion and claims to know you better than you know yourself can't even really get close enough to totally figure them out.
posted by Servo5678 at 5:34 PM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I can't decide if the show is slyly doing this deliberately as an underlying theme or if the writing is that inconsistent.
I basically side with 'the writers don't get it' unless demonstrated otherwise, considering the rest of the information we have about the backstage of these shows. A lot of human cultural imperialism and blindness is baked into Star Trek from Roddenberry's day, and only really got a few kicks here and there, apart from DS9. (Which still wasn't perfect, but was more aware of it than the other shows a good chunk of the time.)
I always thought that the Breen were running their own disinformation campaign against themselves so as to keep their true motives and identities secret.
Hehehe. I bet they can even talk normally and just make those electronic noises to dick with everyone.
posted by mordax at 6:19 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
I basically side with 'the writers don't get it' unless demonstrated otherwise, considering the rest of the information we have about the backstage of these shows. A lot of human cultural imperialism and blindness is baked into Star Trek from Roddenberry's day, and only really got a few kicks here and there, apart from DS9. (Which still wasn't perfect, but was more aware of it than the other shows a good chunk of the time.)
I always thought that the Breen were running their own disinformation campaign against themselves so as to keep their true motives and identities secret.
Hehehe. I bet they can even talk normally and just make those electronic noises to dick with everyone.
posted by mordax at 6:19 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
I've been reading along with these but not watching or posting. Thanks for the interesting discussion, folks!
One thing I'll point out re: "Are Species 8472 the Vorlons?" -- the VFX guy saying "nope, totally not Vorlons" is quoted as working for Foundation Imaging. Foundation Imaging did all the CGI for Babylon 5, as well as some for Voyager. So, I mean, if you're going to do cut-rate Vorlons they're the folks to do it, but I have trouble believing nobody made the connection.
posted by Alterscape at 8:31 PM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
One thing I'll point out re: "Are Species 8472 the Vorlons?" -- the VFX guy saying "nope, totally not Vorlons" is quoted as working for Foundation Imaging. Foundation Imaging did all the CGI for Babylon 5, as well as some for Voyager. So, I mean, if you're going to do cut-rate Vorlons they're the folks to do it, but I have trouble believing nobody made the connection.
posted by Alterscape at 8:31 PM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
So, I mean, if you're going to do cut-rate Vorlons they're the folks to do it, but I have trouble believing nobody made the connection.
Ooh. Thanks for the note! Good to know. :)
posted by mordax at 8:46 PM on August 25, 2017
Ooh. Thanks for the note! Good to know. :)
posted by mordax at 8:46 PM on August 25, 2017
I can't say whether or not there was any intent to sort of play off Babylon 5, or outright steal from it, but the same VFX crew does also suggest the possibility of it simply being a stylistic connection based on the same shop being involved in both. I mean, as a more obvious example, if you asked H.R. Giger to design an alien, even if you didn't purposefully want to emulate the movie Alien, there would still likely be some strong stylistic resemblance since Giger has a singular vision.
A VFX shop likely wouldn't carry the same strong sense of personal vision as someone like Giger, so using them itself isn't necessarily looking for a singular style, but those who work for the shop will still have their own favored ideas on creating, so they might well fall into similarities even if none are intended or, perhaps more likely, borrow from themselves to make the work easier. Given how inherently similar many ideas are going to be in SF TV shows that share common tropes on alien/human interaction, spaceships, metaphors, and historical references, as well as the craftspeople involved, this kind of potential linkage seems all but inevitable.
So there might be some ambiguity around the question of influence and intent in instances like these. Of course, no matter the truth, claims would be of no influence as protection if nothing else, so ambiguity is what we're left with.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:20 PM on August 25, 2017
A VFX shop likely wouldn't carry the same strong sense of personal vision as someone like Giger, so using them itself isn't necessarily looking for a singular style, but those who work for the shop will still have their own favored ideas on creating, so they might well fall into similarities even if none are intended or, perhaps more likely, borrow from themselves to make the work easier. Given how inherently similar many ideas are going to be in SF TV shows that share common tropes on alien/human interaction, spaceships, metaphors, and historical references, as well as the craftspeople involved, this kind of potential linkage seems all but inevitable.
So there might be some ambiguity around the question of influence and intent in instances like these. Of course, no matter the truth, claims would be of no influence as protection if nothing else, so ambiguity is what we're left with.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:20 PM on August 25, 2017
To be clear: I wasn't ragging on Foundation (I have a lot of respect for those folks-- in several ways a couple of them are indirectly responsible for where I ended up in life, by influencing people who influenced my career). It's just interesting that there's a lot of similarity. I imagine it's of the "stylistic similarity" and also bioships being a somewhat common SF trope, so I don't mean to cast any shade at all. Just interesting!
posted by Alterscape at 9:24 PM on August 25, 2017
posted by Alterscape at 9:24 PM on August 25, 2017
Oh yeah, I wasn't hearing any gripe. I think your point was a good one.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:27 PM on August 25, 2017
posted by gusottertrout at 9:27 PM on August 25, 2017
For me, there are a lot of problems with the scenario laid out in the episode and in envisioning Janeway which makes her decision out of character as shown. It isn't so much a problem with deciding to work with the Borg as a thing in itself, that might indeed be something Janeway would consider, but in how they lay out the story elements and in what they don't consider.
Most significantly, I think, is the failure to even grapple with the concept of the Borg being capable of transwarp travel. Transwarp, hmm, let me think what that could mean for Voyager getting home. Or even how quickly they could get across Borg space. That this didn't come up, from either Voyager's crew or the Borg, means it wasn't considered so as to maintain the "between a rock and a hard place" element of the story, making it a purely artificial choice designed to emphasize difficulty rather than thinking it through in terms of any party involved.
Beyond that, Janeway is first and foremost labeled under captain as scientist, and as such rushing to act is about the least appropriate way for her to behave. The time element is, again, artificially circumscribed to make the choice appear more difficult than is sensible for the moment. Janeway's seemingly normal instinct would or should be to study the situation more thoroughly and then act with the accumulated information based on a reasonable hypothesis of events. Certainly not act in haste when haste isn't necessary.
The further proof of this is in the Borg totally ignoring Voyager due to the threat of species 8472. If the Borg are too busy to worry about one ship, then worry about the Borg is far less pressing. If species 8472 is occupied in battle with the Borg, then they too aren't a clear enough threat to Voyager to warrant hasty action. Voyager would be better served simply waiting longer to assess the progress of the battle from a distance without acting in undue haste and hold their discovery as a fall back option should they encounter a aggressive Borg ship in their travels in that area. It isn't clear that Species 8472 is particularly concerned with Voyager, so while there would need be some worry over a random encounter with them, if they stay towards the periphery of Borg territory, away from the "Northwest Passage", then the chances of such an encounter would seem unlikely as Species 8472 hasn't yet shown further aggressive action towards non-Borg Delta quadrant residents.
The confrontation with Chakotay, though, seemed reasonable enough to me. It is made personal in their earlier conversation where Chakotay, essentially, swears to have Janeway's back, then at the moment of truth, withholds his support. It isn't that his reasoning is wrong, it may be the more sensible choice, especially in the genocide part of the discussion, but the reversal itself could certainly be felt as a personal injury of a sort by Janeway. I think it is worth noting too that the bathtub buddies connection is in play here, not simply a captain first officer relationship. Chakotay's talk about potentially staying the Delta quadrant echoes their disagreements when they were temporarily marooned together, and his reply about Janeway being Captain and him First Officer is purposefully distancing in a way that relies on knowledge they had a more personal closeness than any official relationship. Janeway's remark on being really alone comes out of that knowledge rather than her rank.
I think their scenes together are pretty solid actually, even though the arguments being made are seriously flawed in conception. (I'm also rather tired of the Scorpion fable as it's been used too many times in things I've seen, and it is in itself perhaps a little troubling in what it suggests about "innate characteristics". Chakotay should perhaps know how that sort of belief can cause serious harm, but as the resident parable teller I guess the telling is more important than the implications from the writer's perspective.
As a concept though, the Borg battling with a more powerful species is interesting and fun enough. At this point I wasn't all that concerned about Villain decay since TNG Hughed to that path already. Placing the Borg in a sort of galactic ecosystem where they aren't necessarily the biggest threat can make them somewhat more plausible in a way, where being too much more powerful than anyone else could otherwise seem excessive. I didn't get the feeling the Borg are so much depowered as placed in a different context here. (I mean, yeah, they're obviously less threatening than in their first appearance in TNG, but would need to be to be a workable concept for Voyager to deal with. Besides, I can allow for the experience of Best of Both Worlds to be told more from a Enterprise "felt" perspective of how powerful the Borg seemed in the ignorance of first contact rather than a completely disinterested assessment of their power. As a mundane example, the first time you play through a video game a level can seem a lot harder than in later play through since you hadn't built the knowledge and ability to deal with it yet. That same sort of idea works for encountering other new difficulties as well I think.)
All in all, the episode is exciting enough and the dilemma and choice made interesting enough, even if phony, to make for an enjoyable episode, but it is indeed another example of the writers not being consistent with Janeway and placing the interest in action and plot before character. Tuvok would not be happy with them. I do think, however, that Mulgrew is still managing to find some inner consistency even in these rather bizarre extremes that makes Janeway's choices continually interesting as possibilities more than "realities" of a more consistent nature.
I agree with the observation that the writers do make Janeway's choices far more personal than the other captains I've seen, but I don't think that's really a bad thing necessarily, (I mean as a character trait, not as to the choices themselves). It's part of why I prefer Janeway to Kirk and Picard. Kirk is simply too good to be true much of the time, where his captaincy is unduplicable, a cult of One, where decisions can come from anywhere, instinct, undefined experience, knowledge of anything, charisma, or force, whatever the writers need to solve their created dilemma. While Picard's more rules oriented approach, also subject to writer whims of course, is fine but less interesting to me than Janeway's more personal and volatile methods of decision making. Without Mulgrew, or another really capable actress, it might have been a disaster, but as it is it works for me as a general pattern even when the decisions themselves are sometimes, um, strange.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:02 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Most significantly, I think, is the failure to even grapple with the concept of the Borg being capable of transwarp travel. Transwarp, hmm, let me think what that could mean for Voyager getting home. Or even how quickly they could get across Borg space. That this didn't come up, from either Voyager's crew or the Borg, means it wasn't considered so as to maintain the "between a rock and a hard place" element of the story, making it a purely artificial choice designed to emphasize difficulty rather than thinking it through in terms of any party involved.
Beyond that, Janeway is first and foremost labeled under captain as scientist, and as such rushing to act is about the least appropriate way for her to behave. The time element is, again, artificially circumscribed to make the choice appear more difficult than is sensible for the moment. Janeway's seemingly normal instinct would or should be to study the situation more thoroughly and then act with the accumulated information based on a reasonable hypothesis of events. Certainly not act in haste when haste isn't necessary.
The further proof of this is in the Borg totally ignoring Voyager due to the threat of species 8472. If the Borg are too busy to worry about one ship, then worry about the Borg is far less pressing. If species 8472 is occupied in battle with the Borg, then they too aren't a clear enough threat to Voyager to warrant hasty action. Voyager would be better served simply waiting longer to assess the progress of the battle from a distance without acting in undue haste and hold their discovery as a fall back option should they encounter a aggressive Borg ship in their travels in that area. It isn't clear that Species 8472 is particularly concerned with Voyager, so while there would need be some worry over a random encounter with them, if they stay towards the periphery of Borg territory, away from the "Northwest Passage", then the chances of such an encounter would seem unlikely as Species 8472 hasn't yet shown further aggressive action towards non-Borg Delta quadrant residents.
The confrontation with Chakotay, though, seemed reasonable enough to me. It is made personal in their earlier conversation where Chakotay, essentially, swears to have Janeway's back, then at the moment of truth, withholds his support. It isn't that his reasoning is wrong, it may be the more sensible choice, especially in the genocide part of the discussion, but the reversal itself could certainly be felt as a personal injury of a sort by Janeway. I think it is worth noting too that the bathtub buddies connection is in play here, not simply a captain first officer relationship. Chakotay's talk about potentially staying the Delta quadrant echoes their disagreements when they were temporarily marooned together, and his reply about Janeway being Captain and him First Officer is purposefully distancing in a way that relies on knowledge they had a more personal closeness than any official relationship. Janeway's remark on being really alone comes out of that knowledge rather than her rank.
I think their scenes together are pretty solid actually, even though the arguments being made are seriously flawed in conception. (I'm also rather tired of the Scorpion fable as it's been used too many times in things I've seen, and it is in itself perhaps a little troubling in what it suggests about "innate characteristics". Chakotay should perhaps know how that sort of belief can cause serious harm, but as the resident parable teller I guess the telling is more important than the implications from the writer's perspective.
As a concept though, the Borg battling with a more powerful species is interesting and fun enough. At this point I wasn't all that concerned about Villain decay since TNG Hughed to that path already. Placing the Borg in a sort of galactic ecosystem where they aren't necessarily the biggest threat can make them somewhat more plausible in a way, where being too much more powerful than anyone else could otherwise seem excessive. I didn't get the feeling the Borg are so much depowered as placed in a different context here. (I mean, yeah, they're obviously less threatening than in their first appearance in TNG, but would need to be to be a workable concept for Voyager to deal with. Besides, I can allow for the experience of Best of Both Worlds to be told more from a Enterprise "felt" perspective of how powerful the Borg seemed in the ignorance of first contact rather than a completely disinterested assessment of their power. As a mundane example, the first time you play through a video game a level can seem a lot harder than in later play through since you hadn't built the knowledge and ability to deal with it yet. That same sort of idea works for encountering other new difficulties as well I think.)
All in all, the episode is exciting enough and the dilemma and choice made interesting enough, even if phony, to make for an enjoyable episode, but it is indeed another example of the writers not being consistent with Janeway and placing the interest in action and plot before character. Tuvok would not be happy with them. I do think, however, that Mulgrew is still managing to find some inner consistency even in these rather bizarre extremes that makes Janeway's choices continually interesting as possibilities more than "realities" of a more consistent nature.
I agree with the observation that the writers do make Janeway's choices far more personal than the other captains I've seen, but I don't think that's really a bad thing necessarily, (I mean as a character trait, not as to the choices themselves). It's part of why I prefer Janeway to Kirk and Picard. Kirk is simply too good to be true much of the time, where his captaincy is unduplicable, a cult of One, where decisions can come from anywhere, instinct, undefined experience, knowledge of anything, charisma, or force, whatever the writers need to solve their created dilemma. While Picard's more rules oriented approach, also subject to writer whims of course, is fine but less interesting to me than Janeway's more personal and volatile methods of decision making. Without Mulgrew, or another really capable actress, it might have been a disaster, but as it is it works for me as a general pattern even when the decisions themselves are sometimes, um, strange.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:02 PM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Just a note on the Breen- read the ds9 post-series paperbacks and the post Destiny series to get a better idea on the Breen as a collective. Spoiler alert! Multiple species pretending to be one. It all gets very cool and borderline hard sci-fi worldbuilding. love what the paperback writers did with the Breen.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:22 PM on August 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:22 PM on August 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
“since TNG Hughed to that path already”
Take your groan and get out.
posted by traveler_ at 11:39 PM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
Take your groan and get out.
posted by traveler_ at 11:39 PM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
The confrontation with Chakotay, though, seemed reasonable enough to me. It is made personal in their earlier conversation where Chakotay, essentially, swears to have Janeway's back, then at the moment of truth, withholds his support. It isn't that his reasoning is wrong, it may be the more sensible choice, especially in the genocide part of the discussion, but the reversal itself could certainly be felt as a personal injury of a sort by Janeway.
Yeah, I agree that her taking it personally is believable here, and for the reasons you indicate. And let's not forget that EVERYbody's emotions are probably keyed way up once anyone says the word "Borg."
And from a screenwriting perspective, having Janeway say "I guess I really am alone" only to go have that great scene on the cube where she is both really really alone and really really not, is cool. Likewise, the conflict leads to some interesting payoff scenes in "Scorpion Part II." But IIRC there's never a moment in the next episode where Janeway indicates to Chakotay that maybe she took things a little too personally. (Not that she HAS to, since she's captain, but c'mon: the Special Bathtub Relationship goes both ways. With the freedom to hit below the belt comes the responsibility to eat a little crow, if you'll pardon the weirdly mixed metaphor.)
Chakotay should perhaps know how that sort of belief can cause serious harm, but as the resident parable teller I guess the telling is more important than the implications from the writer's perspective.
I LOL'ed.
Besides, I can allow for the experience of Best of Both Worlds to be told more from a Enterprise "felt" perspective of how powerful the Borg seemed in the ignorance of first contact rather than a completely disinterested assessment of their power. As a mundane example, the first time you play through a video game a level can seem a lot harder than in later play through since you hadn't built the knowledge and ability to deal with it yet. That same sort of idea works for encountering other new difficulties as well I think.)
An excellent point. Like how the thrills and terrors of Skyrim diminish markedly after the first time.
And then you download a bunch of clumsy and artificially-pumped-up community mods where every modder was so obviously trying to outdo all others in Punishing Difficulty that you just get turned off by all the dick-measuring. I guess that would be a corollary effect to Villain Decay; maybe Villain Steroids? You certainly see that in the Star Wars expanded universe. I guess we've been lucky that Trek hasn't fallen into that pattern much (disclaimer: I haven't seen Star Trek Beyond and I don't know squat about its villains).
I do think, however, that Mulgrew is still managing to find some inner consistency even in these rather bizarre extremes that makes Janeway's choices continually interesting as possibilities more than "realities" of a more consistent nature.
You've said this before, and while I kind of see what you mean, I'll be interested to see if that Mulgrew-based consistency seems to solidify as we go forward, since it was right around this point in the show that she consciously began bringing more of herself to the character.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 3:18 AM on August 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I agree that her taking it personally is believable here, and for the reasons you indicate. And let's not forget that EVERYbody's emotions are probably keyed way up once anyone says the word "Borg."
And from a screenwriting perspective, having Janeway say "I guess I really am alone" only to go have that great scene on the cube where she is both really really alone and really really not, is cool. Likewise, the conflict leads to some interesting payoff scenes in "Scorpion Part II." But IIRC there's never a moment in the next episode where Janeway indicates to Chakotay that maybe she took things a little too personally. (Not that she HAS to, since she's captain, but c'mon: the Special Bathtub Relationship goes both ways. With the freedom to hit below the belt comes the responsibility to eat a little crow, if you'll pardon the weirdly mixed metaphor.)
Chakotay should perhaps know how that sort of belief can cause serious harm, but as the resident parable teller I guess the telling is more important than the implications from the writer's perspective.
I LOL'ed.
Besides, I can allow for the experience of Best of Both Worlds to be told more from a Enterprise "felt" perspective of how powerful the Borg seemed in the ignorance of first contact rather than a completely disinterested assessment of their power. As a mundane example, the first time you play through a video game a level can seem a lot harder than in later play through since you hadn't built the knowledge and ability to deal with it yet. That same sort of idea works for encountering other new difficulties as well I think.)
An excellent point. Like how the thrills and terrors of Skyrim diminish markedly after the first time.
And then you download a bunch of clumsy and artificially-pumped-up community mods where every modder was so obviously trying to outdo all others in Punishing Difficulty that you just get turned off by all the dick-measuring. I guess that would be a corollary effect to Villain Decay; maybe Villain Steroids? You certainly see that in the Star Wars expanded universe. I guess we've been lucky that Trek hasn't fallen into that pattern much (disclaimer: I haven't seen Star Trek Beyond and I don't know squat about its villains).
I do think, however, that Mulgrew is still managing to find some inner consistency even in these rather bizarre extremes that makes Janeway's choices continually interesting as possibilities more than "realities" of a more consistent nature.
You've said this before, and while I kind of see what you mean, I'll be interested to see if that Mulgrew-based consistency seems to solidify as we go forward, since it was right around this point in the show that she consciously began bringing more of herself to the character.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 3:18 AM on August 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'll be interested to see if that Mulgrew-based consistency seems to solidify as we go forward, since it was right around this point in the show that she consciously began bringing more of herself to the character.
My feeling is that Mulgrew, (and perhaps the writers in their more aware moments), are working with Janeway's past decisions, the big ones, most recent first, in how she interprets the next one, even if it violates a seeming core consistency of ideals. So, for example, in this episode, one can perhaps extrapolate from Janeway's failure to seize opportunities in some past episodes, most notably the Caretaker one and the Ferengi wormhole episode, False Profits?, as animating her agenda here. There are some lines she seems to give some regretful emphasis to when she talks about taking this chance that might suggest some continuity of emotional reflection for her character that is only tacitly in the script.
At the same time however, the writers treat her decisions so haphazardly in regards to any continuity at other times that finding a connection that can even be inferred as making some sense is difficult. I, for example, find the Equinox episodes to be particularly bad in this regard, where the bridge sought simply doesn't hold. The second part of that story is one of the worst for basic character sense out of all the major episodes. And not just for Janeway either. The doctor gets really screwed in that one, and by extension, the mind/morality connection as well. But, of course, we'll get to that later.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:45 PM on August 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
My feeling is that Mulgrew, (and perhaps the writers in their more aware moments), are working with Janeway's past decisions, the big ones, most recent first, in how she interprets the next one, even if it violates a seeming core consistency of ideals. So, for example, in this episode, one can perhaps extrapolate from Janeway's failure to seize opportunities in some past episodes, most notably the Caretaker one and the Ferengi wormhole episode, False Profits?, as animating her agenda here. There are some lines she seems to give some regretful emphasis to when she talks about taking this chance that might suggest some continuity of emotional reflection for her character that is only tacitly in the script.
At the same time however, the writers treat her decisions so haphazardly in regards to any continuity at other times that finding a connection that can even be inferred as making some sense is difficult. I, for example, find the Equinox episodes to be particularly bad in this regard, where the bridge sought simply doesn't hold. The second part of that story is one of the worst for basic character sense out of all the major episodes. And not just for Janeway either. The doctor gets really screwed in that one, and by extension, the mind/morality connection as well. But, of course, we'll get to that later.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:45 PM on August 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
I see that Kes has succumbed to the red-headed doctor virus.
posted by mwhybark at 3:25 PM on October 26, 2017
posted by mwhybark at 3:25 PM on October 26, 2017
I have not seen the episode which provides the shorthand "bathtub buddies," please elaborate.
In both the preceding holodeck episode and this, I read Beltran's (non-holodeck mutineer) portrayal of Chakotay as a man communicating to a woman that he was her spouse, and it was weird, because I had clearly missed a beat in the characters' development. I was kind of trying to figure out if he was trying to *sell* it to her, or if they had slept together, or had given it serious thought, or what.
posted by mwhybark at 2:35 AM on October 27, 2017
In both the preceding holodeck episode and this, I read Beltran's (non-holodeck mutineer) portrayal of Chakotay as a man communicating to a woman that he was her spouse, and it was weird, because I had clearly missed a beat in the characters' development. I was kind of trying to figure out if he was trying to *sell* it to her, or if they had slept together, or had given it serious thought, or what.
posted by mwhybark at 2:35 AM on October 27, 2017
The episode for the "bathtub buddies" reference is Resolutions, where Janeway and Chakotay have to be left behind on a planet alone together when they contract some mysterious virus that would kill them if they left its atmosphere.
It is, of course, an idyllic place, Garden of Eden like, with an alien monkey-creature as their only real companion. Janeway and Chakotay develop some feels for each other even as they calsh over whether to accept their situation, as Chakotay does, or keep fighting, as Janeway prefers. Janeway uses her mad sciencing skills to keep looking for a cure so they can leave, while Chakotay builds the captain of his heart a bathtub.
A storm comes, putting the kibosh on Janeway's sciencing, so it looks like a future of cuddles for the handsome couple, but just as they move towards the sexy, Tuvok and Voyager return with a cure and they depart a bit wistfully, but without having crossed too many captain/first mate boundaries, maybe...
posted by gusottertrout at 3:05 AM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
It is, of course, an idyllic place, Garden of Eden like, with an alien monkey-creature as their only real companion. Janeway and Chakotay develop some feels for each other even as they calsh over whether to accept their situation, as Chakotay does, or keep fighting, as Janeway prefers. Janeway uses her mad sciencing skills to keep looking for a cure so they can leave, while Chakotay builds the captain of his heart a bathtub.
A storm comes, putting the kibosh on Janeway's sciencing, so it looks like a future of cuddles for the handsome couple, but just as they move towards the sexy, Tuvok and Voyager return with a cure and they depart a bit wistfully, but without having crossed too many captain/first mate boundaries, maybe...
posted by gusottertrout at 3:05 AM on October 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
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As for the Borg... well, I rewatched "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" last night, mostly to compare Locutus' demeanor to that of another drone that we'll be meeting very shortly, but I found a lot more in the episode of interest; some of it was due to the episode being largely Riker-centered, and in particular how he dealt with making command decisions that were radically different from those of his temporarily-absent superior officer's (which I'll talk about more next episode), but also the question of just how formidable the Borg are to begin with, relevant to their Villain Decay. Think about it: yes, they rip through the taskforce at Wolf 359 in nothing flat (when the stunned Enterprise crew are reciting the list of destroyed ships, I mentally added, "don't forget the Saratoga"), but within a matter of hours, the cube is defeated by a single ship, albeit one with a rather unique crew member, employing unconventional tactics. In their very next appearance, the E-D crew comes up with something that may destroy the entire Collective. That's pretty quick "decay." I'm also a little more sanguine about Species 8472's chances because there's an interesting idea or two embedded in their having super-DNA with 100x the base pairs of humans'; it reminds me of Iain M. Banks' Excession, which features an extradimensional intelligence from a universe much older than ours which is so much more sophisticated than even the supersmart Minds (AIs) of the Culture that they have no effective defense against it. (The book introduces the concept of the "Outside Context Problem"; as the Borg themselves are an OCP for the Alpha Quadrant, S8472 may be for the Borg.) There's also the possibility that the Borg are simply extremely arrogant, in their flat, affectless Borgish way, and simply can't deal with the possibility of a corporeal single species that they can't assimilate or destroy. We'll see some more of that arrogance next ep, as well.
Other things: I liked da Vinci's appearance, not just for John Rhys-Davies' substantial SFF cred but for all the familiar references to LdV's work in his workshop. The expedition into the cube remnants was also great, with the Borgpile and the remaining drones repeating the same actions over and over like broken toys. The S8472 ship interior obviously borrowed some vaguely Gigeresque features from Aliens, but the species themselves are sufficiently unique, with their cross-shaped pupils and tripedal physique. They're not the only tripedal aliens in SF; Banks' Idirans (from the first Culture book) are, as well as Pierson's puppeteers from Larry Niven's Known Space, and the Edosians--Arex's people--who may or may not be part of Trek, depending on how you feel about the canonicity of TAS (possibly may apply to parts of Known Space, as well.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:01 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]