Star Trek 490: Alliances

490. Alliances

FORMULA: State of Flux + The Undiscovered Country + The Vengeance Factor

WHY WE LIKE IT: The Kazon step it up.

WHY WE DON'T: Janeway's justifications.

REVIEW: We're close enough to the last Kazon episode that it's believable Voyager hasn't left their space, but the multiple attacks and excessive damage Voyager has taken doesn't quite register visually. The ship looks as pristine as ever, and will continue to be so in episodes to come. Still, Chakotay feels an urgency to change the way things are done. Starfleet principles are all well and good, but maybe it's time to make some allies, and Tuvok agrees, name-checking Spock and ST VI's diplomatic overtures to the Klingons as an example. And yet, Janeway insists on interpreting the Prime Directive in the strictest possible way.

Sadly, while the plot of the episode is interesting, Janeway's hardline stance is a major flaw here. She makes it plain that Starfleet regulations are more important than the lives of her crew (never mind their safe return to the Alpha Quadrant) and though she attempts alliances with the Kazon and the Trabe, she uses that failure to ram her original opinion down everyone's throats. It's really passive-aggressive of her, and I'm not sure her arguments are at all logical at the end ("in a region with no rules, it's more important than ever to stick by them?" whaa?)

It's too bad, because the plot is really interesting. We meet the Trabe, the Kazon's former oppressors, who seem friendly enough until their contempt for the Kazon "lesser race" makes them show their true colors. The shuttle blasting the meeting of Kazon dons is a cool piece of business, even though it appears its firepower isn't much to speak of. We find out how the Kazon culture developped to be so brutish, and as brutes, they are still oblivious to the finer points of deception. That's what Seska's there for, now manipulating two men (Chakotay and Culluh) with her unborn child. The character of Michael Jonas is introduced, a new inside man aboard Voyager (and Hogan, but he's just a Maquis dissenter, not a traitor). And there's a sense that things are coming to a head and that the theat level is going up after this.

I'll try to throw in a head count when applicable so... Down to 147 crew and 44 torpedos.

LESSON: If there are no rules, write a rulebook.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Practically a Medium-High, but I find myself having deep misgivings about Janeway's behavior in this one. She's been surprisingly likeable up til now, but now I see how I formed an opposite opinion over the years.

Your Frank Zappa Reference of the Month

From World War Hulk Aftermath: Damage Control #3Cuz sometimes a guy like Dwayne McDuffie writes in a joke just for me.

Star Trek 489: Prototype

489. Prototype

FORMULA: Let This Be Your Last Battlefield + The Changeling + The Robots of Death

WHY WE LIKE IT: Art deco robots. The teaser.

WHY WE DON'T: An ending that tries too hard.

REVIEW: Prototype has a pretty cool opening with the robot's glitchy video POV with static and Terminator Vision(TM), and the robots are interesting and low tech, a cross between Doctor Who's deco Robots of Death and the polite Hal 2000. I know director Jonathan Frakes thought they looked cheap and stupid, but they're a nice change of pace from "actor" androids like Data (who gets name-checked, natch).

The plot features your standard sf twists, with the polite veneer hiding the fact that these are killer machines. 3947 may seem sentient, but he is a slave to his illogical (or too logical) programming. The robots turn out to have killed their now-mythical builders and are ready to do so again to Builder B'Elanna. Standard, but not telegraphed, so it's watchable enough, with a Prime Directive dilemma thrown in for good measure.

B'Elanna's attitude is the episode's flaw. It's never quite revealed why she's so keen to repair 3947 or why she goes to bat for him and his plan to repopulate his model (not to say species). She's downright obsessive about it. Is there sure a thing as Frankenstein Syndrome? The ending where she and Janeway discuss the destruction of the prototype as if she'd been forced to kill a baby attempts to invest the episode with way too much emotion. It doesn't work because it's really not warranted. Come on girls, all B'Elanna really created is a new kind of battery, not "life".

A note on Neelix who's either a clown or a wise man depending on an episode's needs. His stories seem like irrelevant blather, but are usually the perfect advice for the situation at hand. Almost like zen parables. I don't dislike this idea, though he's basically acting out the Guinan role in those scenes. Is it really him?

LESSON: Robots will take over the world. This is your only warning.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: A fair episode with a strong, if somewhat ordinary, science-fiction premise. It would be better if the characters weren't a touch out of character.

Body Image

You know, I don't make any bones about it, I like a girl with meat on her frame. I like the chubby girls. Always have. Only recently have I allowed skinny girls to turn my head. Me, I call that personal growth. Of course, the media is particularly keen to tell me what I should and should not like. TV and film is repleat with so-called perfect bodies, and more that one young woman has succumbed to eating disorders or soul-crushing insecurity because she could not achieve that level of "perfection". But 50 years ago, voluptuousness was the beauty standard. So what happened?

Superman happened.

Let's go back 50 years to 1958 and Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #5. The story: "The Fattest Girl in Metropolis." This is where Superman taught kids that fat was uncool, and that nobody wants to marry the big girl. (Despite the fact that he doesn't want to marry a thin Lois either.) In this thing, Lois walks in front of a "growth beam" that makes her 100 pounds heavier overnight. So bear in mind that she's only 200 lbs. Struggling with obesity, but hardly able to...
...break a car's axle!

Oh wait, three large women in the same car? My bad. Certainly there's no excuse for giving her a reinforced chair:
Do all the 200 lbs. gents use them around the office?

Given that it will later be revealed Superman knew it was her all along, and despite the fact he tries to spare her humiliation later on, he's pretty cruel about the weight thing here:
Dude. You can juggle planets. Cut her a little slack.

More dignity-robbing, confidence-crushing claims made by this comic include:
-Full-figured women buy their clothes at a store called "The Fat Girl's Shoppe".
-Lois is convinced that "nobody loves a fat girl" (sob).
-Fat girls can't keep from eating:
-And when they eat, oh boy, is it ever expensive. Superman spends his entire paycheck on Lois' last dinner as a big girl (chomp).
-Oh yeah, and you better not walk past the circus:
Unless you want a job, that is.

It's a cruel world out there, and it got just a little bit crueler back in 1958.

This article by special request from Bauble.

Star Trek 488: Resistance

488. Resistance

FORMULA: Second Skin + The Homecoming

WHY WE LIKE IT: A touching guest performance.

WHY WE DON'T: Stupid, stupid guards.

REVIEW: The heart of this story is Caylem, a senile yet wiley old man so desperate to save his family from the clutches of the fascist Mokra regime, he's ready to believe Janeway is his daughter bent on the same mission. Joel Gray delivers a touching performance, pathetic but not helpless in the face of adversity. It sometimes seems like he's convincing himself of his beliefs, but no, he's too far gone to really know what's going on, and Janeway finally tells him what he wants to hear, as little joy and peace as he lay dying.

For the Voyager crew, it's another rescue mission (I'm about to start counting the number of times B'Elanna gets captured and held). The half-Klingon is her usual wall-pounding self, but Tuvok screaming under torture makes for a more interesting moment. I'm not sure it's a good idea to degrade Janeway by having her pose as a prostitute to get into the prison, though I suppose it plays into her role-playing abilities (it seems strange to think of her that way, but she takes on many personae in the course of the series, and usually plays them to the hilt). Unmemorable parts for everyone else.

Augris is a wonderfully slimy villain, cruel but able to be charmed and amused, but he's not very well attended. If there's a problem in this episode, it's that the guards are incredibly dumb and useless. I should think that Caylem would have been killed long ago if he jumped these jackbooted thugs as often as he does in this episode. Just why the resistance hasn't toppled the Mokra Order yet remains a mystery. There certainly don't seem to be many of them about.

The alien city is well designed as far as claustrophobic streets go. Vaguely North African. But it's a small world indeed when the official contacting Voyager walks the streets of the city Neelix's contacts live in. And the corridors of the prison are very empty indeed, even in the middle of a jail break with all force fields down. Augris eventually shows up with a couple of goons, both of which promptly skulk away once their boss is downed. Perhaps necessary for Caylem and Janeway's drama to play out, but it robs the plot of any urgency.

LESSON: Rumors fly faster than warp speed. Second episode in a row where Voyager's reputation precedes it.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Not bad by any means, with good guest stars and heroic moments for Janeway and Tuvok, but it's not one of those memorable episodes. At all.

My First Rom Spaceknight

To celebrate the end of RomQuest(TM) and my completing my Rom collection, he's the very first review of a Rom comic I ever wrote, on a website a couple years back. And yes, there will be more to come as I experience the glory that is Rom firsthand in the weeks to come. So then...

ROM #49, Marvel Comics, December 1983
I didn't regularly buy Rom Spaceknight. In fact, I think I have, like, 3 issues total. It just scared the crap out of me too much. The only creepier comic book in the early 80s was Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, which I also couldn't read. I was obviously born too late. And too weak.

Rom was based, believe it or not, on a toy. I've never seen more than one picture of the Rom action doll, and here it is:
It didn't make it big, obviously, which left the comic to become anything it wanted to be: Half-Silver Surfer, half-Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That last influence is probably why it disturbed me so much. The ending of 70s version with Donald Sutherland freaks me out to this day. And the body snatchers in Rom, truly monstrous aliens called the Dire Wraiths, add a measure of body horror to the proceedings. These guys are truly ugly:
And those drill-like tongues are perfect for BURROWING INTO YOUR BRAIN AND REPLACING YOU, LEAVING A DESSICATED CORPSE THAT LOOKS A HELL OF A LOT LIKE ARSEFACE FROM PREACHER!!!
That right there is more chilling than Francis Ford Crapola's Dracula. These guys aren't just butt-ugly shape-changing aliens, they're sorcerers too! It's like they didn't feel they were evil enough that they had to add the black arts to their resumes.

As for Rom, he's a self-pitying, self-loathing stiff, totally in the Silver Surfer vein, except he's cooler on two counts: 1) No silly prop, and 2) he's got the cool eyes. I love how Sal Buscema draws them:
That's his girlfriend and fellow starknight, Starshine, in the background there. She and Rom are hot for each other, but they can't really do anything about it trapped in those armors. Cue more self-pity/loathing. But for her, he's come back to Earth to save it from Wraithkind.

The Dire Wraiths are setting a trap for Rom, a plan involving the murder and replacement of half the small town of Clairton, Virginia, including Starshine's parents and friends. This comic takes no prisoners. The middle part of the comic has a bit too much soap opera, with Starshine trying to force Rom out of his shell, but she'll be hit by despair as well when she finds out her parents have been killed. "And I've become too inhuman to even cry!" she says. Again with the Silver Surfer-level angst.

It ends with the heroes being magically cast into another dimension (see the cover), and I can't quite believe that didn't make me buy Rom #50. For now, I'll have to blame it on my young mind being unable to process this level of horror in my superhero comics. Only one possible rating:

Star Trek 487: Maneuvers

487. Maneuvers

FORMULA: State of Flux + For the Cause + Prime Factors

WHY WE LIKE IT: The daring raid. Seska's back.

WHY WE DON'T: Voyager's detours.

REVIEW: Seska returns with her Kazon boyfriend and makes a pretty good villain thanks to her Cardassian wiles. The Kazon have a rather limited worldview, after all, and throwing in Cardassian deceit and strategy, as well as a flair for uneasy alliances, makes the Nistrim sect a bit more interesting. As a group that is, because Culluh himself is only Seska's tool, and barely ever outgrows this status. He's a chump.

The episode starts out big, with the Kazon piercing Voyager's hull with a shuttle and boarding her that way. It's a clever way to get around the fact they have no transporters, and surprising that it's Seska's idea. What do the Kazon usually do? She's making them try new things all over the place, including trying to negotiate agreements with other sects, in a scene that can only be described as the meeting of dons. Except the moll is the real boss. Cool transporter tug of war at the end too.

But the Kazon and their harsh white lighting are only set dressing for the real conflict, a chess game between Seska and Chakotay. He knows her well and has his own tricks, but she's just a little bit better and captures him. It's nice to see him use psychology (and his own humiliating treatment at the hands of this femme fatale) as a weapon. Hm, it just occurred to me that this engineer suddenly shows a lot of medical know-how by reconfiguring her DNA back to the original Cardassian (plus impregnating herself with Chakotay's non-sperm DNA). She might just be TOO competent, but then Voyager is perhaps too powerful, taking massive damage here and yet being able to win the day against multiple Kazon ships (despite Tuvok's rather shoddy work throughout).

A perfectly good conflict despite some logic flaws and the disappointed mom routine at the end that is almost exactly that of Prime Factors, and the episode makes it clear Seska and Culluh will return. Given the level of drama and action presented, that would seem to be a good thing, but it underscores the fact that Voyager is evidently not getting home in a straight line. Somehow, a Kazon ship they met months ago can get in front of them and plan an ambush. And will again. Is Culluh keeping pace with the ship, leaving his own territory behind, unprotected? If his sect is small, is it believable to think Nistrim territory stretches out this far? So Voyager must be making detours that keep it in the same small patch of Kazon space, and we aren't getting anywhere at all. An example of how Voyager is ignoring its own premise.

LESSON: If you're going to share spinal fluid, use protection.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: Hums along at a good pace, with some original strategies on both sides, but kept from being a High thanks to some large plot holes.