Memorial

*** (3 stars out of 5)

B'Elanna Torres' clever plan to make her BF happy backfires when she replicates Tom a mid-1950's TV set. You remember them?  From the era before people gave up TV forever? Once you give a guy a TV and a beer, when's he going to have time to thank you or kiss you? It's usually either TV for 8 hours a day or "TV? What's TV?"

Tom and then everyone else goes mad, and for once it's not TV's fault. They are having flashbacks, nightmares and hallucinations from a wartime slaughter they don't remember signing up for.

Planet Tarakis took a page from "The Inner Light", except instead of remembering the music, love, and fellowship of a dead race, Tarakis would like everyone everywhere to remember blood and guts and veins in your teeth!

"Why should anyone have to experience an atrocity they didn't commit?" argue the humans. Neelix just as vehemently speaks out on behalf of this traumatic learning process: Neither Tarakis, Rinax, Khitomer, Gettysburg, or Calgary Comic Con 2012 must happen ever again.

Janeway has her minions change the batteries in the memorial, but also puts up a satellite warning label: "Planet May Contain Scenes of Intense Violence and Coarse Language".

"Memorial" has a strident message with good performances, but when you're not only re-hashing a previous series but YOUR OWN SERIES (Remember "Remember"?) how much innovation is that? Never again doesn't seem to apply to retelling the same story every few years. I'd love to talk about this some more, but the TV is calling.

Nemesis

* (1 star out of 5)
Holy hell, this is like NINE shuttle crashes now! I'm starting to think Chakotay has never LANDED a shuttle before!
In Disney's least popular park- Vietnamland, the Vori abhor none but the Nemesis: the Kradin. The Krady beast. Kradinator. Krading Copies.

Vori Sturdy Defender Brone drills Chakotay in the tactics of "The Clash". How to call London back and so forth.

It seems Chakotay's universal translator must've taken a knock, too. It's set to Seldom Used Synonym. The Vori never say simply, cousin, what can be said stiffly and unnaturally: Trees are 'trunks', clothes are 'coverings', seen is 'glimpsed', the future is 'the soon after'. You may come to regard it as cleverly unfamiliar or deeply annoying. Perhaps both.

Kitten Rafin Smith from Starship Troopers is gunned down while wrestling his trembles to rages. Man, oh, man, Gloried Defenders, I wish I was watching Starship Troopers for the 14th time instead of this episode for the third.

But while trying to recover her missing first officer, Janeway has befriended Ambassador Treen of the Krady beasts. Oh noes!

The atrocities Chakotay sees the Kradin perform have all been Imaginary Stories during a drugged indoctrination procedure. The Kradin probably have all manner of REAL atrocities, but for those you'd have to watch them in their other roles: Predator, Predator 2, Alien vs. Predator, etc. I'm saying with maws like those they've probably yanked out a spine or two in their time.

The verdict? As the Vori say: "It's not so savoury."

I propose that the title "Nemesis" should never again be used in Star Trek. Ever. It's clearly cursed. HEED MY WARNING! You'd be sharp to do my tellings. Fathom? Avoid the Nemesis! (I wish it were as easy to stop talking like a Vori as it is to start.)