Exasperated Calculator

Torres gets split into a Klingon and a Human half.

From the summary line I was expecting to hate this episode a lot, but it turned out to be really really good. The story is able to teach us a lot about one character, while managing to avoid the deep dive into technobabble that’s been hurting a lot of episodes lately.

The acting of the two ‘halves’ of Torres is incredible. The actress manages to make both of them recognisably part of Torres’ normal personality, but also shows the clear difference in them. It’s very clever, and very well done.

369 down, 368 to go. And that’s halfway by episode count.

Sisko goes all Thor Heyerdahl.

A strangely quieter episode, the trickiest thing here is adjusting to the suddenly slower pace than the episodes around it. It’s a good story, well told in a way that builds useful character elements, it’s just a bit of a whiplash in change of pace from the ‘Romulans trying to defeat the Domninion’ scope of the previous episode.

Even the Bashir B-plot was nicely done. It built his relationship with O’Brien, painted a good picture of his insecurities and concerns, and had a nice payoff at the end. Nothing deeply consequential, jut moving the character forward another notch.

368 down, 369 to go.

Chakotay’s brain gets drained.

How would you make a really bad episode?

• Stupid Holodeck opening sequence with no point other than using up a few minutes.

• Ridiculous technobabble explanation for the main inciting incident.

• Painfully long ‘oh, he’s native american’ sequence with a medicine wheel.

• Kes having strange psychic visions that seem to bring on blurry camerawork.

That’s the first 12 minutes. The silly ghost story and ‘Who’s the Alien’ rubbish of the remainder is Voyager’s first journey into truly awful.

367 down, 370 to go.

The Romulans and Cardassians try to deal with the Founders once and for all.

A bit of ‘two parter’ syndrome at play here, but still a pretty good story. The best part is Garak’s mental journey. Initially I was a bit unclear about whether he was just faking or not, but the torture scenes made that very clear, and his reaction to his path.

A very big thing happened here and hardly anyone noticed yet. The undercover Founder not only showed some very active interest, but a willingness to take specific action to achieve their goals. So far no one’s very excited about that, but that’ll change…

366 down, 371 to go.

Voyager finally gets a start on an important Star Fleet tradition – the holodeck malfunction.

The first 15 minutes is a strange combination of bizarre technobabble and bad period drama. It’s quite simply not very good. The decision to use the Doctor as the main character is a good one, as it turns a pretty standard story we’ve seen before into a bit of a fish out of water tale.

But there’s still too much chaff around the story, and far too much ‘Viking Hall’ stuff. The characters there aren’t very interesting, and as that’s the only interaction the Doctor has the episode just doesn’t have a lot of meat to it.

365 down, 372 to go.

Garak’s shop has a little bit of an explosion.

Another one of those ‘so good I don’t have much to say’ episodes. This is the payoff to a lot of parts laid through the season and before – the secret Cardassian fleet from Defiant, the Romulan intelligence exchange from Visionary, finding the Founders in The Search, Garak’s Obsidian Order history from The Wire. It’s a perfect example of laying groundwork for something big.

But now to see if there’s enough payoff next time…

364 down, 373 to go.