Category: Trekathon

Things go from ‘changeling infiltrators’ to ‘civil war’ pretty quickly. This story would have been completely unimaginable only 5 years ago. Previously the rule had been ‘Star Fleet can do no wrong’. Now we can have some parts of Star Fleet try to conduct a coup. It makes for a good story, but it’s resolved…

The changelings turn up on Earth, and Sisko and Odo have to go help out. You never quite know when you are going to get a case of the plot holes. You know, when you cannot watch something without seeing all the plot problems that, usually, you would just let slide. It can be a…

Janeway has to rely on a delusional resistance fighter to rescue Tuvok and B’Elanna. Overall a miss for me. The episode tries to do something a bit deeper with the delusional man insisting that Janeway is his daughter. But the arc of the episode (denial, compliance, acceptance at the end) is too obvious. And while…

Bashir infringes on James Bond’s trademarks. OK, this is getting a bit silly now. We’ve had a Submarine movie, a 50s Science Fiction movie, an Indiana Jones movie, and now a James Bond movie. Perhaps someone needs to at least find a new section of the DVD store to rip off plots from for a…

Seals returns, staging a raid on Voyager. So far Voyager has been fairly free of recurring villains, or much in the way of external plot drivers at all. This episode, and in particular the ending, represents a significant change in that. Fortunately Seska is a pretty interesting villain, although her motivations are pretty opaque. None…

Worf and Dax go hunting for the Sword of Kahless with another Klingon warrior, Kor. A huge chunk of this episode is basically that episode from the Simpsons where several kids by a comic book together. They find something really precious. There’s a lot of fighting over who gets to keep it, and it ends…

Kes finds a sideline as a psychic firestarter, as Voyager finds a potential way home. So far we’ve seen a few times where the seemingly light Kes shows a dark side. I’m hoping it’s real character development rather than just a grasp for a useful contrast. Here it works, as you get the sense that…

Quark, Nog and Rom end up in Roswell in 1947. Grading against the curve for Ferengi episodes this was excellent – only a couple of scenes that made me want to kick things, and for the most part a fairly fun story. It’s a very silly premise, but the earnestness of the performances of the…

Chakotay meets his ancestors’ sky spirits. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t like the ‘native american spirituality’ stuff here. It just doesn’t feel real or deep enough, it’s a very simplistic approach to a culture. I’m also not a big fan of ‘ancient astronaut’ stuff in science fiction, so the combination of the two was…

The crew of the Defiant performs a tribute to the great submarine movies. With the exception of three quibbles, this was a pretty well put together episode. There was good action, good tension, good character development, and a resolution that depended on brains rather than on technobabble. The initial setup required to get into the…