Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic
I was putting off re-watching this one, because I had vague memories that it was not the best episode, though I didn't remember any of the details. But I watched it with an open mind, and after a careful examination of the facts, have determined that it is indeed crap. Voyager finds an old pickup truck from Earth floating in space, and beams it aboard. Tom Paris, who is an auto buff, immediately recognizes that it's a 36 Ford. Wow, that is specific. I have spent my entire life studying cars, and am three centuries closer to this truck than him, and I couldn't have even guessed it in the right decade. But this guy from space knows everything about it. He even knows the starting procedure: 1) choke out 2) clutch in 3) turn the key 4) give 'er some gas 5) step on the starter. And it starts, because batteries last forever and gas never goes bad. My frustration is that this all adds nothing to the story, and I can only suspend reality in my mind so far. I have no problem pretending there's a universe where aliens and warp drives exist, but when you insert something from my world into that fictional reality, it still needs to abide by the rules of
this universe. The scene would have been improved if Paris had said something like, "It looks like an Earth automobile, possibly from the early 20th century. Oh look! Here's a marking indicating that it's a Ford, I think I've heard of those!" and then he hilariously fumbles around trying to figure out how to start it but fails. I know, I know, Paris works on cars in the holodeck, blah blah blah.
Next the AM radio in the vehicle picks up an old-fashioned SOS signal, so they decide they had better get down to the planet and figure out what's going on. But they can't beam down or take a shuttle, because .....technobabble reasons. So they decide to land Voyager on the planet, which is something that no one on board had ever done before. I remember the first time I saw this, I was amazed because I had no idea this could even be done. But even this bright spot is not very well done, as the graphics are lousy, and for some reason they land right next to a giant rock face and most of the view of the ship is obscured. But it is neat to see sunlight out of the observation windows on the ship. On the planet they find the source of the SOS is an old airplane fitted with a modern power source.
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| "We'll just put it down here, mostly off camera." |
Then Fonzie straps his water skis on, and donning his signature leather jacket and sun shades, jumps over a shark. Ok, not really. It's actually worse than that. They find some people in a cave that are in suspended animation cryo-chambers. True to their mantra of non-interference, they immediately wake them up without considering any consequences. It turns out that one of them is.... Amelia Earhart. I'm serious. Now, if I were a parody writer for a sketch comedy show, and I wanted to write a segment mocking lousy and cliched plots on Star Trek Voyager, I would have rejected this idea as too stupid. But somehow this actually made it through production on a real television show. On the season opener, no less! The truly sad part once again is that the inclusion of this character adds nothing to the plot. She's basically just another person in the situation, and is not even all that interesting of a character. Janeway tells her that after she disappeared, she became an inspiration for women everywhere. Which, I don't think is really true. When you're best known for disappearing and probably dying, you're really just not all that inspiring. Plus, to this day
there are very, very, few female pilots. Then Janeway tells her that everyone now knows that she was working with the U.S. government to spy on the Japanese. Do we? I'd never heard that.
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| Pictured: All of the people on Voyager with sense |
Anyway, it all comes out that alien abductions on Earth really were a thing in the mid-1900s, and here's where they ended up. There's a ton of humans living here, and after getting over their initial anger at the crew for destroying their carefully preserved artifacts and messing with what they thought were the tombs of the 37's, they seem pretty nice. So nice in fact that they offer to let the crew stay on the planet. So Janeway gives them the choice to stay and have normal lives with other humans, or join her on her mission to reach the real Earth. In perhaps the most interesting dilemma of the show, Chakotay insists that the ship wouldn't be able to be run with less than 100 crew members, and Janeway seems to insinuate that if enough people bail, she'll stay too. That would have been interesting. Losing some key members of the crew would have been interesting. Sad goodbyes and twisted stomachs over extremely tough decisions would have been interesting. But instead, not one person decided to stay. UGH!
Horrible. And why was that truck floating through space? That part still makes no sense.
Published April 19, 2017
I was putting off re-watching this one, because I had vague memories that it was not the best episode, though I didn't remember any of the details. But I watched it with an open mind, and after a careful examination of the facts, have determined that it is indeed crap. Voyager finds an old pickup truck from Earth floating in space, and beams it aboard. Tom Paris, who is an auto buff, immediately recognizes that it's a 36 Ford. Wow, that is specific. I have spent my entire life studying cars, and am three centuries closer to this truck than him, and I couldn't have even guessed it in the right decade. But this guy from space knows everything about it. He even knows the starting procedure: 1) choke out 2) clutch in 3) turn the key 4) give 'er some gas 5) step on the starter. And it starts, because batteries last forever and gas never goes bad. My frustration is that this all adds nothing to the story, and I can only suspend reality in my mind so far. I have no problem pretending there's a universe where aliens and warp drives exist, but when you insert something from my world into that fictional reality, it still needs to abide by the rules of this universe. The scene would have been improved if Paris had said something like, "It looks like an Earth automobile, possibly from the early 20th century. Oh look! Here's a marking indicating that it's a Ford, I think I've heard of those!" and then he hilariously fumbles around trying to figure out how to start it but fails. I know, I know, Paris works on cars in the holodeck, blah blah blah.
Next the AM radio in the vehicle picks up an old-fashioned SOS signal, so they decide they had better get down to the planet and figure out what's going on. But they can't beam down or take a shuttle, because .....technobabble reasons. So they decide to land Voyager on the planet, which is something that no one on board had ever done before. I remember the first time I saw this, I was amazed because I had no idea this could even be done. But even this bright spot is not very well done, as the graphics are lousy, and for some reason they land right next to a giant rock face and most of the view of the ship is obscured. But it is neat to see sunlight out of the observation windows on the ship. On the planet they find the source of the SOS is an old airplane fitted with a modern power source.
FIX THE EPISODE, BABY!
ReplyDeleteWhile looking for resources, Voyager discovers a planet that shows life signs. Human life signs. They investigate and find a friendly yet cautious human population. If we need to show off landing the ship here, fine, do it. The humans explain their backstory, which is the same alien abduction/ revolt scenario as explained in the original. Some of the characters on the planet are extremely compelling and interesting. None of them are Amelia Earhart or her idiotic drunk navigator. At least one main character falls in love with an inhabitant. Then the human colonists invite Voyager to stay, and Janeway leaves it up to the crew. The lovelorn main character decides to stay, as do some others. Some characters on the planet consider coming with Voyager, but since Neelix and Kes have already filled that role I guess they shouldn't, which is a real shame. There is a tearful goodbye, and Voyager departs. Maybe the character that we lost pops up again in future episodes.