Human Error

* (1 star out of 5)

If there is an award for a teaser that contains nothing of significance, might not Seven of Nine pensively playing the piano alone be a finalist? Aren't you interested in keeping us interested?

Some jerks built an invisible minefield and included a warning sign written in invisible space ink. Again I say, JERKS. Voyager, of course, blunders through it and things go "boom".

Speaking of things that appear suddenly and without warning out of the blue, Seven has a crush on Chakotay now! The very guy who blew her Borg focus group into space and tried to do the same to her. Seven programs herself a little holographic version of the first officer to practice boyfriending on.
Sure. he's handsome! But why didn't she express any interest earlier, say- when she studied the crew manifest looking for someone to date TWO YEARS AGO?

If Seven is so clueless about humanity, how can the social scenarios she wrote feature everyone else acting NORMALLY and giving sound advice on topics Seven doesn't understand? How does Seven know that Neelix would yammer on about carpets matching drapes? Seven can't even sound casual asking the real Torres for grooming tips! Or is this the main computer autonomously using personal files to make this stuff up?

Not only is the ex-drone avoiding work, she's also not regenerating in favour of her fantasy, until she gets sick. Worst of all, her vitally necessary, non-removable cortical node has the NEVER-BEFORE-MENTIONED feature of shutting her down if she has a strong feeling! Yes, it chaps my ass. This didn't happen to ANY OTHER ex-drone; from rage-fueled Lansor, Marika, and P'Chan, to passionate Frazier, from stalwart Hugh to ever-lovin' Locutus. "THIS FAH! NO FURTHA! Urrggh..." Picard faints.

So... Seven's quest for humanity was apparently ALWAYS doomed to failure. Nice one, writers. "Gawrsh, I'd like me a pretty horny girl with no feelings! That'd be the best! Hyuk!"

"Human Error" is a big disappointment, and reviewer Michelle Green puts it a lot better than I can. Quick, the series is ending! Throw some couple together so we give the illusion of growth and change... you know, like when Worf and Troi hit it off so famously and so well.

Imperfection

** (2 stars out of 5)

Something's broken in Seven of Nine's brain. It must be Tuesday.

When all of the Borg Babies but one find a home at the same time (despite being from different species) Seven is all hugs and tears. What?!? Say it is isn't so! Feelings? That's not right!

And it isn't. The rubber band on Seven's cortical node has snapped and every other implant in her body randomly fails without it. It cannot be repaired, only replaced.

Thankfully, the Borg leave piles of disused ships and parts in convenient, nearby locations in much the way they never used to do. When it turns out that cortical nodes wear out almost immediately (one wonders how the dead Borg springs back to life back in 'Unity' if cortical nodes spoil faster than bread left out on the counter, but whatever), Janeway intends to get a fresh one by killing the next Borg she sees. That seems like the moral thing to do!

Icheb is the hero of the day, echoing C-3PO: "If any of my circuits or gears will help, I'll gladly donate them!" Fortunately, despite this being the most vital piece of the Borg brain, HE doesn't need one. He pulls it out himself to prove it. He's young, he takes vitamins, some sort of rubbish like that. I mean, it's a noble self-risking sacrifice on his part, but it doesn't make much sense. It's only brain surgery, after all. For her- life or death. For him- shrugged off like a loose tooth. Sure, why not?

As a side note, when dying Seven reads over Voyager's casualty list, it's good to finally learn the names of the senior officers killed seven years ago in the original Caretaker abduction. Bartlett, McGarry, Ziegler, Lyman, Seaborn, Craig, Young. All lost from damage sustained to the port nacelle- or if you prefer, The West Wing.

"Imperfection" is too easy a target for a title. Truth in advertising? Still, there are plenty of opposing views: here's one on Get Critical. One wonders- is this likely to happen again? Is this likely to happen to any and all former Borg? Janeway, Tuvok, Torres, Picard, Hugh's colony, Frazier's off-the-grid ex-Borgs? One day minding their own business, chopping onions, suddenly start weeping, pass out and die? Pretty brittle things for a master race, ain't they? That said, Jeri Ryan and Manu Intiraymi (as Seven and Icheb) play their vulnerable, heartfelt roles very well. Not their fault the Borg are becoming less and less the unstoppable storm and more and more those clumsy straw men we knock down whenever it suits us.

Gravity

* (1 star out of 5)
Is it possible Season 5 is Voyager's rock bottom? I sincerely hope so. It's been so long since I've sat down to watch them that at this point I have to fight to remember whether I even LIKE this show.

So, yeah... in the B story flashback, Tuvok had the heart drummed out of him when he was a schoolboy with a crush. Uh, hooray? I guess worse things happen to horny church kids sent into seclusion with creepy priests. But this is just not how I pictured the Vulcan Birds and Bees. Vulcan love is portrayed as private, not NON-EXISTENT. My case in point: Tuvok throughout the series plainly misses his wife and kids.

Stranded down a time hole after the most recent regularly scheduled shuttle crash, it's balmy desert island adventure like that old Vulcan novel Robinson Cruvok. Tank Girl stabs spiders with forks. The desert-dweller Noss spews girlish gibberish and has the hots for teacher.

Tom, for no good reason, spends an unusual amount of time and effort trying to get Tuvok to cheat on his wife. Did he contract a rare, temporary but highly dangerous form of the Iago Virus? It manifests either in jealous urging of happily married black guys to destroy their marriages, or in turning into a parrot with a piercing Gilbert Gottfried voice.

"Gravity" is the most I ever hated Tom Paris. Cruising for a bruising, boozing, selling out, but I never disliked him more than when he was trying to talk a man into cheating on his wife. WHY? Just... WHY? Voyager is making astonishing time WAY ahead of the 75 year schedule. It's been less than five years and they've already come HALFWAY. Even if their luck turns completely, Tuvok is very, VERY likely to make it home before his wife moves on. What kind of twisted jerk tries to mess with true love?

Descent

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Data has a holodeck poker game with Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking. Fanboys punch the air on three... two... now!

Meanwhile, in things that aren't fun, 274 on Ohniaka III are killed, and sneaky Borg are found in their closets. They are brutal, enraged, and much chattier than usual.

Speaking of angry, Data kills one in ANGER. Or an incredible simulation. He decides it is his first emotion (apparently he's not counting that laugh from Q). Has he finally evolved feelings?

Speaking of cold, heartless machines, Admiral Nechayev is still chapped about the way Enterprise handled the Borg Hugh last year. She orders Picard to destroy the Borg any way he can and not keep whining about this 'conscience' he thinks is soooo great. I worry about that woman.

Data confides to Troi that he has tried to activate more feelings with music, holodeck comedy, and porn. He hasn't tried anger again: he regards it as negative. Troi, unlike Yoda, doesn't think anger necessarily leads to hate.

Enterprise catches a Borg alive at the MS I colony. (Personally, I wouldn't name a star system after a tragic nerve disorder, but that's just me.)

Their prisoner is called Crosis. Ned Crosis. He won't answer questions: he just lists efficient methods of killing them. Left alone when everyone human takes an ill-timed pee break, Crosis remotely deactivates Data's ethical program. The cyborg goads the droid into admitting that, to have potent feelings again, he would kill his BFF Geordi. Imagine what he'd do for a Klondike bar.

In light of that, Data absconding with a shuttle and Crosis was the lesser of evils. Geordi figures out how to use the Borg's patented Speedy Gonzales transwarp conduit. They cover 65 light years in a few seconds. Near the ruins of two advanced civilizations, they find the empty shuttle. Good thing, too: they were still making payments on it.

This next plan seems very risky to me. Since the sensors don't work, Picard beams EVERYBODY down in search parties except a skeleton crew. Yes, Everybody. I imagine Mr. Mott and his barbering staff wandering some dismal swamp with phaser rifles and hot combs.

In a building with the red claw emblem previously seen on Borg Action Figures, The Borg's Leader is revealed. It's Lore! With Data The Grouch by his side. The Sons of Soong shall destroy the Federation!

 "Descent" makes it clear some diminishing returns with the Borg are setting in. Angry Birds may be popular, but not so much Angry Borgs. Tune in next year this week anyway!

The Ensigns of Command

*** (3 stars out of 5)

O'Brien, a gal in blue, and an elf are in a string quartet with Data. (No, it's not the opening line to a joke, the elf is probably a Vulcan in off-duty clothes.) I just found it interesting that O'Brien plays the cello. I like O'Brien, O.K.? I return you to your regularly scheduled meanderings.

Data attempts to warn Picard and Crusher that his violin performance is about to fall short because he lacks "soul".

"Telling us why you're going to fail before you make the attempt is never wise." Bev points out.

The Selia Star system is home to the Sheliak Corporate. The Sheliak are squishy, antisocial Rules Nazis who are about to settle on Tau Cygna V, home to an unauthorized batch of humans, their homes and stuff and junk, and plenty of deadly hyperonic radiation.

Sheliak consider humans lower life-forms and will exterminate the trespassers if they aren't out in four days. 'You can't pay the rent? You MUST pay the rent!' (Sheliak twirls mustache... which it pulled off somebody's face.)

Colony ship Artemis apparently got turned around. In 92 years they managed to adapt themselves to the harsh conditions and brought water to the desert. The current population is over 15,000, and the evacuation will take more than 2 weeks.

Data meets his biggest fan, Ard'rian "Ardy" McKenzie. She's a quirky robot-loving nerd. Everyone else here is apparently willing to die as illegal squatters.

Ardy has some Tim Burton-Class robots, like hideous metal storks with gas-can bodies. Or are they sculptures? Apart from a human murder spree, why would you build such a creepy thing?

Possibly because of a year working with Pulaski, Data's self-confidence (if any) is at an all-time low.

Ardy helps Data give an emotional speech using reverse psychology. "And when you die... you will die for land and for honour."

Leader Gosheven will still not yield. "I don't think our chances are as hopeless as he says and I'm willing to stake your lives on it."

Rather than accept people talking behind his back, Gosheven BLASTS Data with a cattle prod.

Overreact much, you crazy, bullying bastard!?

Same goes for the Sheliak Regional Director of Non-Human Resources. Looking a little like the Cylon Imperious Leader, he's not particularly patient with Picard's "gibber".

Despite the fact that I probably would have given up and let Gosheven and his sheeple discover what the inside of a Sheliak digestive tract looks like, Data is not a quitter. He uses one of his own neuroprocessors to build a smarter phaser that works in hyperonic radiation, and annihilates kilometres of squatter aqueduct in seconds.

"This is just a thing. Things can be replaced. Lives cannot."

Picard & Troi find the right loophole buried in the treaty: third party arbitrators. He names the Grisellas, who won't emerge from hibernation for six months. The Sheliak agree to give the humans three weeks to evacuate, instead of a shellacking.

Poor Ardy learns from a kiss what Data never hid from her: he has no feelings for her. "I have no feelings... of any kind."

"The Ensigns of Command" asks the question that Yar failed to get around to while drunk: how fully functional is a guy without feelings? And would you want to find out?

I guess he'd be more fun to kiss than one of those robot storks. YIKES.

And The Children Shall Lead

* (1 star out of 5)

Well, I'm sorry, but tonight it's "And The Children Shall Lead" AKA The Awful One With The Orphans and That Lawyer Dressed as a Garbage Bag.

Star Trek Season Three: underfunded, unloved by the studio, and all but abandoned by Roddenberry, this season still managed to make some pretty good episodes that I like. This is not one of them.

Dreary planet Triacus, after today famous for the disturbing mass suicide by poison of its science team, leaves Enterprise looking after a merry band of children. The kids romp amid the blotchy corpses of their parents, eerily self-involved and disconnected. Like it was the 1990's but dressed brighter.

The grabby urchins take Nurse Chapel's computerized ice cream, but take no guff from any adults about facing up to the trauma they're not making an effort to endure.

Somethin' ain't right, and it's the creepy cult leader whose influence the children are under.

He's called Gorgon, the Friendly Angel, and he's a powerful energy being exerting mental influence. His minions shake their tiny fists, and provoke crippling fear in the adults. Only by rejecting him, taking away the strength of their childlike faith, is he defeated.

All of which is undercut every second Gorgon's onscreen by the undeniable fact that this ghostly apparition from a dead race of cruel despots who struck fear into the local star systems and passed into legend is a doughy, avuncular square sporting a green plastic full body curtain with dainty little leaves and flowers all over it. Take it from me, as a man-child who spends hour after hour Marvelling and DeeCeeing over superhero comics, I can't even picture a less intimidating villain.

And doesn't orphaned Tommy Starnes look just like orphaned Peter Kirk from season one? That's not a casting choice that serves repeat viewing well.

I can't muster all the disdain this episode really requires, so for more bile check out the review at The Agony Booth.

The Naked Time

*** (3 stars out of 5)

The NAKED time? Not as fun as it sounds... but still pretty fun.

Viral space madness releases the crew's buried feelings. A drunken Irishman makes matters worse. Which will kill everyone first: Riley's barricaded engine room or his singing?

It's a good early story: what makes these astronauts tick? We'll learn when the PSI 2000 virus turns subtext into text. Captain Kirk has a love/hate relationship with the ship. He wants to relax on a beach but he NEEDS to be at work. Spock's entire sense of self is founded on being a logical Vulcan like his father, but he's never been able to tell his Human mother that he loves her. And SOME of the crew are royally screwed up.

"What are we DOING out here in space? Good? WHAT good?" Joe Tormolen, shortly before his suicide by butter knife and apathy. If letting your feelings out to play has you seconds from giving up the ghost you had bigger problems. What were his problems? Kevin Riley explains: "He wasn't born an Irishman."

Riley continues to rile people. "One Irishman is worth 10,000 of YOU, sir!" he shouts to Spock.

Nationality is apparently a more relevant topic when you're drunk. As are gender politics, since he adds: "Let the women work, too. Universal suffrage!" He soon evades security and locks himself in the engine room, shutting the engines down and declaring himself Captain over the intercoms.

While the Enterprise spirals out of orbit, Helmsman Sulu decides he's a Musketeer and plays swords in the halls- with a real foil. He "rescues" communication officer Uhura.

"I'll protect you, fair maiden!" blurts bare-chested Sulu. "Sorry, neither!" Uhura insists.

My pal Ron pointed out the subversive nature of this line. Two loaded words making light of two network taboos at once: she's black and she has THE SEX. Tee hee!

Riley still howls his terrible ballads and gives orders. "There'll be a formal dance in the bowling alley at 1900." I dearly love the idea that this is not a hallucination- if there isn't a bowling alley on this starship, there SHOULD be.

Nurse Christine Chapel throws herself at Mr. Spock, siting his gentleness and honesty above the rumors she has heard that Vulcans hurt their women.

Considering what we are about to learn in three episodes (about how long it's been since Christine had THE SEX) I guess she's willing to risk it.

Good old Scotty phasers through the bulkhead to the engine room (and in the CGI Special Editions they could a afford to give him a cutting beam to do it with) "I'm sorry, but there'll be no ice cream for you tonight." says Riley to the mutinous dogs.

Oh, and in the course of evading a crash landing on a crumbling ice planet, they accidentally figure out how to time travel. One of those useful little things that crop up now and again.