Category: Trekathon

Last season I was getting pretty worried about the trend in Deep Space Nine. Fortunately this year turned things around substantially. We’re still not back to the stellar heights of Season Two, but quality is back. The two best episodes of the year, *The Visitor* and *Hard Time* are some of the very best things…

Odo catches a strange Changeling disease. This episode would have made a lot more sense if it had happened about halfway through the season. The major story arcs have been almost immobile, and the two big moves from this episode (Gowron might be a changeling, Odo is now human) could have helped a lot with…

A whole bunch of Ferengi stuff. You’re not going to make me remember it, are you? This episode manages to cover Ferengi Contract Law, Ferengi Religion, Ferengi Funerals, and, most importantly of all, Ferengi Boredom. There is little interesting in the story, and then it ends with a blatant ripoff of *It’s a Wonderful Life*.…

After 42 episodes Voyager is yet to produce a single great episode. At the same point into their runs every other series had at least one, normally more. It generally stays out of truly awful (with the exception of *The Thaw* this year), but never really clicks. Mediocrity at work. There was no common thread…

Voyager loses a game of cat and mouse with the Kazon. The Kazon have never been an interesting villain. Seska has helped a little bit, but not enough. They just don’t have enough dimension to them. That makes the events here pretty shocking – all they needed as slightly better tactics to capture the ship?…

Dr Bashir tries to cure a Jem’Hadar punishment plague. The first real Bashir character piece in a while – he doesn’t get very many, either. Here we finally deal with his biggest flaw, his arrogance. But while there’s a nice bit in the middle where he questions himself, I got the impression that by the…

Chakotay and Janeway catch a fatal illness, and have to be left behind. An episode of (deliberately) two sections. There’s the ‘Tuvok disobeys orders to find a cure’ bit, and the ‘Swiss Family Janeway’ bit. The Tuvok sections are fairly by the numbers, although there is a nice action sequence towards the end where we…

A rouge Jem’Hadar group leads to the first joint Federation/Dominion operation. Finally we see a bit of a third dimension to the Dominion. There have been several Jem’Hadar episodes, but none of them have worked particularly well. Here it finally clicks, and we get a much clearer sense of what they believe. The use of…

Harry Kim’s incompetence maims Tuvok and Neelix. This could have been a lot, lot worse. The concept of merging Tuvok and Neelix into a single person could have been played for comedy. Instead this episode takes a much more difficult philosophical path. Unfortunately the decision made at the end rings false. No matter how justified,…

Sisko’s girlfriend could be an agent for the Maquis. Did not see this one coming. OK, the Eddington thing I saw a mile off. But the Kassidy Yates thing was out of left field. And, honestly, it still feels a little arbitrary – we’ve never had a reason to suspect she might be on the…