Trekkish confessions
Sep. 3rd, 2004 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe fandom love child memes recently reminded me that Star Trek was basically my first fandom. (Yes, me and half the planet.) I watched TOS as a child and teenager and still have a pleasant nostalgic fondness for it, which is why I gritted my teetch and aquired the outrageously expensive DVDs today. TNG was when I really fell in love, though not at first sight (again, that first season? err, not quite ST at its best). Picard is still my favourite Starship Captain, fondness for later arrivals nonewithstanding. (I could give arguments regarding the appeal of an intelligent man trying to have a tight reign on his emotions, or I could go openly and completely fangirl and say "Patrick Stewart - that VOICE!") DS9 then suprised me by surpassing TNG in terms of consistently good writing and quickly became by favourite Trek. (Simultanously, I feel in love with B5. I never understood why there should be an either/or about the two. I adore both.)
Then came Voyager, about which I felt so-so. I didn't hate it the way some fans did, but I couldn't muster the same emotional investment TNG and DS9 had commanded from me. The Doctor was interesting and quickly became my favourite, and I liked Janeway, Paris and hapless Harry Kim. Early Be'Lanna Torres was a bit too obvious a Key'Lahr clone for me, Kes, Neelix and Tuvok left me indifferent for the most part, Chakotay I thought terribly dull. More damagingly, considering the first four years of Voyager ran simultanously with DS9 at its peak, the contrast on how the potential conflict between Maquis as Starfleet was wasted and how one-dimensional the Kazon were, when compared to the Cardassians and the Founders was just glaring.
However, season 4 introduced my other favourite Voyager character. Yes, I confess myself a Seven of Nine fan. Recently I rewatched the fourth season and you know, not only is it arguably Voyager's best (as an overall season) but it holds up quite well next to the other Treks. One reason why Seven worked so well for me was that the producers and writers didn't rely on Jeri Ryan's admittedly gorgeous looks. (1) (I had seen Jeri Ryan before in the short-lived Dark Skies, where she had played kick-ass agent Juliet, so I was pre-disposed to like her, I admit.) They give her plenty to act as well, and an interesting storyline which does not (something![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alara_r recently pointed out) center on romance, a rarity for a female character, alas. Like the Doctor (and in the grand tradition of Spock, Data, Odo et all), Seven is another outsider confronted with humanity. As opposed to the Maquis, here the potential for conflict is not wasted. Be'lanna and Chakotay react to the fact that there's a recently disconnected Borg on board just as they should - with suspicion and hostility. Seven herself isn't overwhelmed by the joys of being human and in the company of humans, either. From the moment that a just disconnected Seven challenged Janeway in the second episode of the fourth season, The Gift, with the fact that Janeway's decision to make her human again was just as much disregarding her will as the child Annika's assimilation by the Borg had been, I knew this wouldn't be settled in just one episode. Could it be, I thought, the Voyager writers try something like an arc, and not a mini one like the Paris-as-spy one in season 2?
As it turned out, they did. Season 4, from Scorpion, II to the last episode, Hope and Fear, which could be subtitled Scorpion III, presents consistent character development for Seven of Nine, and between Seven and Janeway, and Seven and the rest of the crew. You could not switch earlier episodes with later ones here. And the last episode directly tackled an open question from the first - when Janeway traded a biological weapon against Species 8somethingortheother to the Borg for a short cut home, she stopped what could have been the complete annihilation of the Borg. How would species who suffered through the Borg see this?
Now this is mostly a character arc, definitely not as ambitious as what DS9 did at the same time with several characters AND the Dominion/Alpha Quadrant developments, and we shouldn't even mention Babylon 5. But it's well done, and I liked both watching it the first time and then rewatching it again.
(1) Check out those episodes which show her in full Borg make-up, looking ghastly - Scorpion II, The Gift, or the flashback-ridden and Ron Moore written one in season 7. And then there's Body and Soul, in which the Doctor's program is downloaded into Seven to hide him from a species hostile to holograms. No, it's not Out of their Minds, but it's fun, and Jeri Ryan does a wonderful Robert Picardo impersonation.
Then came Voyager, about which I felt so-so. I didn't hate it the way some fans did, but I couldn't muster the same emotional investment TNG and DS9 had commanded from me. The Doctor was interesting and quickly became my favourite, and I liked Janeway, Paris and hapless Harry Kim. Early Be'Lanna Torres was a bit too obvious a Key'Lahr clone for me, Kes, Neelix and Tuvok left me indifferent for the most part, Chakotay I thought terribly dull. More damagingly, considering the first four years of Voyager ran simultanously with DS9 at its peak, the contrast on how the potential conflict between Maquis as Starfleet was wasted and how one-dimensional the Kazon were, when compared to the Cardassians and the Founders was just glaring.
However, season 4 introduced my other favourite Voyager character. Yes, I confess myself a Seven of Nine fan. Recently I rewatched the fourth season and you know, not only is it arguably Voyager's best (as an overall season) but it holds up quite well next to the other Treks. One reason why Seven worked so well for me was that the producers and writers didn't rely on Jeri Ryan's admittedly gorgeous looks. (1) (I had seen Jeri Ryan before in the short-lived Dark Skies, where she had played kick-ass agent Juliet, so I was pre-disposed to like her, I admit.) They give her plenty to act as well, and an interesting storyline which does not (something
alara_r recently pointed out) center on romance, a rarity for a female character, alas. Like the Doctor (and in the grand tradition of Spock, Data, Odo et all), Seven is another outsider confronted with humanity. As opposed to the Maquis, here the potential for conflict is not wasted. Be'lanna and Chakotay react to the fact that there's a recently disconnected Borg on board just as they should - with suspicion and hostility. Seven herself isn't overwhelmed by the joys of being human and in the company of humans, either. From the moment that a just disconnected Seven challenged Janeway in the second episode of the fourth season, The Gift, with the fact that Janeway's decision to make her human again was just as much disregarding her will as the child Annika's assimilation by the Borg had been, I knew this wouldn't be settled in just one episode. Could it be, I thought, the Voyager writers try something like an arc, and not a mini one like the Paris-as-spy one in season 2? As it turned out, they did. Season 4, from Scorpion, II to the last episode, Hope and Fear, which could be subtitled Scorpion III, presents consistent character development for Seven of Nine, and between Seven and Janeway, and Seven and the rest of the crew. You could not switch earlier episodes with later ones here. And the last episode directly tackled an open question from the first - when Janeway traded a biological weapon against Species 8somethingortheother to the Borg for a short cut home, she stopped what could have been the complete annihilation of the Borg. How would species who suffered through the Borg see this?
Now this is mostly a character arc, definitely not as ambitious as what DS9 did at the same time with several characters AND the Dominion/Alpha Quadrant developments, and we shouldn't even mention Babylon 5. But it's well done, and I liked both watching it the first time and then rewatching it again.
(1) Check out those episodes which show her in full Borg make-up, looking ghastly - Scorpion II, The Gift, or the flashback-ridden and Ron Moore written one in season 7. And then there's Body and Soul, in which the Doctor's program is downloaded into Seven to hide him from a species hostile to holograms. No, it's not Out of their Minds, but it's fun, and Jeri Ryan does a wonderful Robert Picardo impersonation.
