Friday, November 27, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 99 - Once Upon a Time

Tuvok, Paris and Ensign Wildman take the Delta Flyer for a test run. Neelix is tasked with babysitting Wildman's daughter Naomi. The Flyer ends up crashing on a planet and buried under rubble. Neelix must now deal with the possibility Naomi's mother may be dead. The episode was interesting and well acted. It jumps between real life and Naomi's wonderland-esque adventure in the holodeck. I came to realize that the holodeck would be the coolest thing ever to a kid.

99 down 73 to go

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 98 - In the Flesh

"The ship encounters a training facility for an alien invasion of Earth."

Everything on this facility looks exactly like a Starfleet facility, right down to the people and uniforms. But, in reality they are really genetically altered Species 8472 (the aliens seen in the episode Prey). They seemed to have gone to this elaborate lengths in order to learn about Starfleet, by completely simulating everything about them. Seems waaaaaay too overboard. The groundskeeper/leader of Species 8472 is played by Ray Walston (from  My Favorite Martian) and he was awesome. Seriously, it's worth watching just to see his performance.

98 down 74 to go

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 97 - Extreme Risk

"B'Elanna purposely puts herself into increasingly more dangerous situations. Meanwhile the crew decides to build a new shuttlecraft, the Delta Flyer."


Really not much to this episode. Torres is clinically depressed and has a death wish. Chakotay helps her to overcome it ... in one day basically, which is ridiculous. The crew builds a new and improved shuttlecraft, somehow how they are able to just build large complicated machinery, which is ridiculous. Nonetheless, it was an alright episode.

97 down 75 to go

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 96 - Drone

Do to a transporter malfunction, something happens with 7 of 9's remaining Borg tech ... and it begins to create another Borg?? Weird concept. But anyway, he knows nothing of the Borg and is actually a nice guy, they name him One. Unfortunately the real Borg are drawn to him. They attack Voyager but One beams over to the Borg ship and destroys it. Somehow he survives, but barely. The Doctor tries to save him but he wants to die, saying he should have never existed in the first place. Weird, my parents said the same thing to me. Anyway, the episode was OK and it added more depth to the 7 of 9 character. Plus visually, the Borg scenes looked great.

96 down 76 to go

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 95 - Night

"Voyager loses power traversing a dark region of space containing theta radiation."

They have entered a region of space with no stars and suddenly they lose power. Meanwhile a weird alien is seen on the ship. In addition to this everyone on Voyager is irritable and bored. Janeway has locked herself in her room for days. A ship approaches, it is piloted by a Malon and he is a trash hauler?? Whatever. He offers to exchange a safe passage through a vortex in exchange for that alien. Janeway finds out that these two are at a war because the Malon keep dumping toxic waste through the vortex into the aliens space. So Janeway decides to destroy the vortex, but not before Voyager goes through it. This is literally the plot to Erin Brokavitch.

95 down 77 to go

Monday, November 16, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 94 - Hope and Fear

Janeway is still trying to decipher that message from Starfleet. Her luck changes when Arturis (an Alien with great brain power played by Ray Wise) comes aboard. He figures out the code and the message is for them to go to certain coordinates. When they arrive there is a Starship waiting, it is empty but has new technology on it. Everything is looking good, until the real message is finally decoded ... Starfleet is basically giving up on them. It seems that Arturis lied and also faked the Starship. He did it all because he blames Voyager for helping the Borg defeat those aliens a few episodes back. This had a trickle down effect that killed most of his race, so now this is his revenge. What a ridiculously over the top plan.

94 down 78 to go

Star Trek VGR Episode 93 - One

"Seven of Nine is left alone on Voyager when a nebula's deadly radiation forces the rest of the crew to stay in stasis and the Doctor's hologram projectors are disrupted."

All around, weird episode. First of all, the ship needs to pass through a radiation force so Janeway puts the entire crew into stasis except for 7 of 9??? Since when is this ever an option? Then 7 of 9 starts going mad and hallucinating because she is lonely. This also seems out of character for 7 of 9. To be honest, I don't even like this character anyway. She is boring and Jeri Ryan can't act. In the episode 7 of 9 says that she is not into acting out fantasies ... so ironic.

93 down 79 to go

Star Trek: Insurrection

This movie gave a giant Insurrection. Actually it didn't, I hated it... just really wanted to use that joke. Here is the plot: Data is on an undercover mission to observe the peaceful Ba'ku people, he is wearing a cloaked suit. Right away it's stupid. Why go to these lengths to observe people on a planet when I'm sure you have the ability to just watch them from a ship. Anyway, he malfunctions and goes rogue. This all leads to the revelation that the Ba'ku have a way to rejuvenate people, the Enterprise crew gets caught up in this feeling of immortality. Picard starts a romance with some woman, Troi and Riker get back together and Geordie can see again. But, under it all is a giant cover up between the Federation and the Son'a (a rival race to the Ba'ku). The Federation is secretly planning to help the Son'a forcibly relocate the Ba'ku so that the Son'a can have the rejuvenation process all to themselves...for some reason???? Anyway, there is a big fight and the Enterprise wins. That's literally all that you have to know.

So the plot was ehhh. It was very silly, even by Star Trek standards, lots of one liners and hacky jokes. Acting was still very good, and of course guest-villain F. Murray Abraham was great as the Son'a leader. The Son'a were supposed to look like "mummies" but they just look like Fred Armisen, seriously! Visually the movie looked fantastic, particularly the ship battle scenes. My favorite scene was when, in an attempt to calm the crazed Data down, Picard and Worf sing him a score from HMS Pinafore. Normally I trash scenes like this because it seems so dumb that Star Trek character are always so into 19th and early 20th century arts. It's like me saying that I am way into Gilgamesh. But, too be honestly I like HMS Pinafore and Gilbert & Sullivan in general, so I will let this one slide. In short, HMS Pinafore is excellent.

Friday, November 13, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 92 - Demon

"Tom Paris and Harry Kim take a shuttle down to an extremely inhospitable planet to obtain fuel."

This planet is designated "demon-class" because it is so deadly to humans. Paris and Tom go on it to get some much needed deuterium. They are enveloped by a metallic liquid and they die, then they come back to life. They go back on Voyager but are barely able to breathe. Their bodies are then discovered back on the planet. Seems that the Paris and Tom aboard Voyager are aliens that have taken their form. Instead of fighting them... Janeway makes a weird move. She allows them to basically clone the Voyager crew using their "silver blood" in order to build their own society. ...So there is a planet full of Voyager clones now???

92 down 80 to go

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 91 - Living Witness

"A Kyrian museum curator 700 years in the future hopes a Voyager relic containing a copy of the Doctor can confirm their version of history."

This is defiantly one of the standout episodes of the Voyager series. It is very creative and entertaining. This society paints Voyager as a violent ship that destroyed their land. But, basically this was all just an assumption, lost in time and based solely on a few artifacts. The Doctor is accidently released from an artifact and tries to set the record straight. It is a difficult episode to describe, but I would suggest that everyone check it out.

91 down 81 to go

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 90 - Unforgettable

A woman named Kellin boards Voyager. She is from a race that has a weird chemistry. It seems that they are impervious to tricorder readings and also they are literally forgotten in a few hours by all that encounter them. Honestly, I am not big on this concept, it's just too stupid. BUT, the episode was not too bad. AND Kellin is played by the lovely Virginia Madsen.

She tries to convince Chakotay that they fell in love a few months ago. Eventually her race shows up and threatens to punish her for violating their code. Chakotay again falls for her and tries to keep her on Voyager but she is removed. All records of her existence are also erased from the ships computers. Before Chakotay forgets her forever, he writes his experience down on paper. It's sort of like The Notebook.

90 down 82 to go

Friday, November 06, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 89 - The Omega Directive

"Janeway undertakes the Omega Directive, an order to destroy Omega molecules, even if it means violating the Prime Directive."

It's not a great premise. I mean, I like the whole top secret Starfleet initiative to destroy a certain "something" if ever found. But, when that "something" is a particle, it's just too dumb. This Omega particle is just too unbelievable. One particle that is so unstable it can completely "destroy" vast amounts of space. Look, anything is possible, the amount of what we really know is very miniscule... but I just can't grasp this concept.
Meanwhile 7 of 9 lobbies for Janeway to save the particle. Borg's view this particle as the ultimate perfect being, a God. Especially when multiple particles flow together. Non of this makes sense.

89 down 83 to go

Thursday, November 05, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 88 - Vis à Vis

"An alien shuttle with a prototype propulsion system suddenly appears and requires assistance. Paris is restless and volunteers to help the pilot repair the shuttle."

So it starts of with Paris in the holodeck working on a 1969 Camaro. Which is just ridiculous. It's like me working on a chariot. Eventually Voyager meets up with an alien named Steth and they help him fix his ship. He a decent guy, but can be pompous at times. Turns out he is also a parasite of sorts. He can jump into anyone's body at anytime ... like Wilt Chamberlain. I'm not explaining that joke. He takes over Paris and walks around the ship acting like a jerk. Meanwhile, Paris has been transformed into Steth's old form. And then a bunch of stuff happens. Oh and Steth is played by Dan Butler, who was Bulldog on Frazier.

88 down 84 to go

Sunday, November 01, 2015

Star Trek VGR Episode 87 - The Killing Game part 2

Continuing on. The episode sort of reminds me of Surviving the Game. Instead of chasing Ice T around the forest, they are chasing Janeway around a city. Eh, that wasn't a good joke. Oh and you know how I said the Hirogen's looked cool, well there's a stipulation to that. They look good in their space suits, out of them ... they look completely ridiculous.

So the Dr. and Harry are the only ones still on the "ship". They find a way to fight back, meanwhile Janeway and 7 of 9 figure out whats going and they fight back from within the holodeck. Eventually they all break free. Turns out this was all just a giant test that the main Hirogen guy was doing on the holodeck. He plans on changing his society and make them less violent. They will still hunt, but only in the holodeck environment. Janeway agrees with him but before she can help assist with the transfer of holodeck technology, he is assisinated. Seems that the others do not agree with him. Janeway gives them the technology anyway in hopes that they will eventually see the way. All in all, it was an entertaining episode. But, I'm just always startled whenever I see a swastika on a TV show. Like that Alf episode where he goes to Auschwitz.

87 down 85 to go

Star Trek VGR Episode 86 - The Killing Game part 1

The Hirogen infiltrate the Holodeck and trap everyone in WWII era France. You didn't think a Star Trek series would
fail to have a Nazi themed episode did you? For shame. So basically the Hirogen are the Nazis and they chase
around the crew throughout WWII France. So it's sort of like the crew are the Jews. I don't know, it's kind of an
offensive episode now that I think about it. In general, it sort of trivializes the entire thing when a sci-fi show uses an atrocity as a backstory. It would be like if there was an Alf episode were he goes to Auschwitz.

86 down 86 to go

Star Trek VGR Episode 85 - Retrospect

"After experiencing unsettling hallucinations, Seven of Nine is hypnotized by the Doctor whose analysis reveals a trader may have extracted Borg technology from Seven without her consent."

So 7 of 9 has visions of this trader guy knocking her out and stealing her technology. A brief investigation reveals some evidence of this and Tuvok detains the guy. Eventually they figure out that these are false memories but it's too late; feeling helpless, the Trader kills himself. It's the feel good episode of the year! It was a solid 7 of 9 themed episode.

85 down 87 to go