Story: Macrocosm
Written By: Brannon Braga
Series: Star Trek: Voyager
Year: 1996
It is crazy how good this show can be when it is so consistently inept most of the time. It didn’t start off great, we get Janeway and Neelix ending their visit with the Tak Tak, a really dumb alien race. I get annoyed that this show still tries to use the old TNG trick of having members of the crew on some nonsensical diplomatic mission. On TNG they were in the Alpha Quadrant, they were a major force, it kind of made sense. You want people to be away from the ship while something is happening on the ship, they went off to a conference or to some diplomatic event. On Voyager they do this but more often than not there is no explanation as to WHY they are talking to these aliens. Beyond that the Tak Tak have one of my least favorite Trek make-up…I really hate it when the noses cover up the mouth. This is something I really can’t see evolution allowing. Not to mention the Tak Tak talk with hard to watch ridiculous body movements.
Anyhow we get to Voyager and something is wrong. Its adrift, no one responds, and when they get aboard they can’t find anybody. Then they meet some weird space mosquitoes and they get rid of Neelix (who doesn’t appear for the rest of the episode which is great news, you actually consider he could be dead from that point, too bad following episodes will prove that theory wrong). So now we get some time of Janeway just making her way through the ship all Ripley like. No idiotic dialogue, just some bad assery and action. It actually highlighted how good the sets on Voyager are. It is a good looking ship. Tooo bad it is usually wasted on dumb episodes.
Finally Janeway finds the Doctor, who of course is still perfectly fine. He gives us the explanations, which lead to good scenes featuring my favorite character on this show (if it were me this show would be called “Star Trek: EMH”), and eventually reveal that the ship is under attack by a “macrovirus”. Something that infects people, and eventually the virus escapes the body and becomes like insects that grow large and continue to infect more.
Sure the episode isn’t terrific. It has many flaws, like the Tak Tak, the away mission at the beginning itself, having Neelix in the show at all, or showcasing once again what a moronic concept the biological technology within Voyager really is…and yeah maybe it kind of feels like Brannon Braga had just watched Alien or Aliens while he was down with the flu...but still it had enough good moments to kind of let you move on past its flaws and see more of the good…and that is so rare in this particular series I have to take it when I can.
NEXT TIME: Neelix’s old friend causes trouble
Written By: Brannon Braga
Series: Star Trek: Voyager
Year: 1996
It is crazy how good this show can be when it is so consistently inept most of the time. It didn’t start off great, we get Janeway and Neelix ending their visit with the Tak Tak, a really dumb alien race. I get annoyed that this show still tries to use the old TNG trick of having members of the crew on some nonsensical diplomatic mission. On TNG they were in the Alpha Quadrant, they were a major force, it kind of made sense. You want people to be away from the ship while something is happening on the ship, they went off to a conference or to some diplomatic event. On Voyager they do this but more often than not there is no explanation as to WHY they are talking to these aliens. Beyond that the Tak Tak have one of my least favorite Trek make-up…I really hate it when the noses cover up the mouth. This is something I really can’t see evolution allowing. Not to mention the Tak Tak talk with hard to watch ridiculous body movements.
Finally Janeway finds the Doctor, who of course is still perfectly fine. He gives us the explanations, which lead to good scenes featuring my favorite character on this show (if it were me this show would be called “Star Trek: EMH”), and eventually reveal that the ship is under attack by a “macrovirus”. Something that infects people, and eventually the virus escapes the body and becomes like insects that grow large and continue to infect more.
Sure the episode isn’t terrific. It has many flaws, like the Tak Tak, the away mission at the beginning itself, having Neelix in the show at all, or showcasing once again what a moronic concept the biological technology within Voyager really is…and yeah maybe it kind of feels like Brannon Braga had just watched Alien or Aliens while he was down with the flu...but still it had enough good moments to kind of let you move on past its flaws and see more of the good…and that is so rare in this particular series I have to take it when I can.
NEXT TIME: Neelix’s old friend causes trouble