Voyager- Muse review

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I thought Kellis' girlfriend looked familiar. Guess Elizabeth Cutler got reincarnated or something to the Delta Quadrant....

It must be my reading Mass Effect or Halo novels but both those franchises point out that humans and aliens should not be able to eat the same foods without getting sick (or lack proper digestion enzymes to process said food). So it's amusing to see this crop up so often on every Star Trek series.

That's just the storytelling medium. When you've only got 46 minutes and a limited budget, you don't always have time to establish a full biology for whatever alien species is being introduced. In a video game with a plot that lasts 50 hours, you can just drop subtle bits of worldbuilding the conversation, and then let those drive the player toward reading the in-game encyclopedia. Similar to any written source, where you can introduce aliens and drop a full load of exposition without it interfering with pacing.

We're already accepting a lot of storytelling conventions from Star Trek shows-all aliens are obviously just humans in costumes, they speak the same language (thanks to Universal translators which are magical and don't require calibration, additional programming, or maintenance), and they breathe the same atmospheres so we have easily have our characters interacting with them. The aliens that don't breathe oxygen/nitrogen atmospheres, like the Benzites, show up very rarely because they take a lot of production.

Id like to see some non humanoid aliens like the Horta or Tholians some times. Its one of the things Orville did that was a good idea, give us a big blob as a crew member. If a lower budget show can do that why not star trek at some point I would love to see a tholian science officer or a horta like creature thats a geologist ect.

Yeah, that's a big deal. Throw us a frickin bone.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

In Voyager's case, I've always assumed Neelix had to put his food past the Doctor before serving it to the crew.

Based on how it affected them, and the ship, this simply cannot be the case.

[Durandal_1707]

On the other hand, I consider the episodic nature of The Twilight Zone to be one of it's real strengths: it gives the series a feeling similar to golden age sci-fi short stories. It's interesting to me that episodic television used to be a sign of prestige rather than something that was criticized. It isn't like serialized television was just invented- it was something done in soap operas or more schlocky stuff. Even a great show like The Fugitive, they had serialized elements by necessity, but the writers still went well out of their way to make each episode self-contained because it was a prestige show.

Nothing new about that; every new artistic trend arises in reaction to the previous norm, and each time the new way is The True Art™ and the old way is for people who Just Don't Get It. Look at the history of the arts in general:

Renaissance: Gah, our art is terrible! The ancients had such a better grasp of form, proportion, balance. Let's study that, and get back to making art the right way!

Baroque: That's all fine and all, but it's a bit boring, don't you think? Screw that, let's make art that really makes an impression! Be massive! Be ornate! Be complicated! Put froofy things all over the place! Go big or go home!

Enlightenment: Isn't that a bit much? Yeesh! Exercise some restraint! Art should be tasteful, simple, and natural! Discipline yourself, use your reason rather than shatning all over the place. See, look how pretty this is.

Romanticism: OMG that's so stuffy! So pedantic! You guys are missing the whole POINT of art!! It needs to be EXCITING and PASSIONATE and MOVE THE SENSES! Who cares about proper form, it's all about EMOTIONS and FEELS and MAGIC and ROMANCE and DRAMA and SPECTACLE and OMGomgomgomgomgomg SQEEEEEE!!!1!1!121231`!29%01#8`~~~~~

Modernism: I think I am going to get diabetes. Look. Simplicity is good. There's no need to express everything so literally—we have photographs for that. Give your audience some credit. God. Art should leave things up to the imagination rather than hitting you over the head with a sledgehammer. Or maybe we don't need even that much. Heck, maybe I will just draw some abstract shapes on a canvas, and as long as it looks cool, it's a win.

... and so on and so forth.

[Hero_Of_Shadows]

On the other hand, I consider the episodic nature of The Twilight Zone to be one of it's real strengths: it gives the series a feeling similar to golden age sci-fi short stories. It's interesting to me that episodic television used to be a sign of prestige rather than something that was criticized. It isn't like serialized television was just invented- it was something done in soap operas or more schlocky stuff. Even a great show like The Fugitive, they had serialized elements by necessity, but the writers still went well out of their way to make each episode self-contained because it was a prestige show.

Nothing new about that; every new artistic trend arises in reaction to the previous norm, and each time the new way is The True Art™ and the old way is for people who Just Don't Get It. Look at the history of the arts in general:

Renaissance: Gah, our art is terrible! The ancients had such a better grasp of form, proportion, balance. Let's study that, and get back to making art the right way!

Baroque: That's all fine and all, but it's a bit boring, don't you think? Screw that, let's make art that really makes an impression! Be massive! Be ornate! Be complicated! Put froofy things all over the place! Go big or go home!

Enlightenment: Isn't that a bit much? Yeesh! Exercise some restraint! Art should be tasteful, simple, and natural! Discipline yourself, use your reason rather than shatning all over the place. See, look how pretty this is.

Romanticism: OMG that's so stuffy! So pedantic! You guys are missing the whole POINT of art!! It needs to be EXCITING and PASSIONATE and MOVE THE SENSES! Who cares about proper form, it's all about EMOTIONS and FEELS and MAGIC and ROMANCE and DRAMA and SPECTACLE and OMGomgomgomgomgomg SQEEEEEE!!!1!1!121231`!29%01#8`~~~~~

Modernism: I think I am going to get diabetes. Look. Simplicity is good. There's no need to express everything so literally—we have photographs for that. Give your audience some credit. God. Art should leave things up to the imagination rather than hitting you over the head with a sledgehammer. Or maybe we don't need even that much. Heck, maybe I will just draw some abstract shapes on a canvas, and as long as it looks cool, it's a win.

... and so on and so forth.

You know call me a philistine, but for me modernism is "Making art is tough, I'll just do something weird then write an essay explaining why it's art, the critics will love the essay and browbeat the public into liking it." which post-modernism expands upon by skipping the essay part and letting the critics find their own reason why "the art" is art.

[Shuboy07]

In Voyager's case, I've always assumed Neelix had to put his food past the Doctor before serving it to the crew.

Based on how it affected them, and the ship, this simply cannot be the case.

I completely forgot to add "I hope" to the end of that sentence......

After nearly blowing up the ship with CHEESE I would assume the Doctor (and the crew) insisted on analyzing all of Neelix's food before serving.

[Robovski]

In Voyager's case, I've always assumed Neelix had to put his food past the Doctor before serving it to the crew.

Based on how it affected them, and the ship, this simply cannot be the case.

I picture Neelix with a borrowed tricorder he doesn't know much how to use scanning the food and going, ''Yes, carbohydrates and proteins! Just what they need.'' and then snapping it shut.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

On the other hand, I consider the episodic nature of The Twilight Zone to be one of it's real strengths: it gives the series a feeling similar to golden age sci-fi short stories. It's interesting to me that episodic television used to be a sign of prestige rather than something that was criticized. It isn't like serialized television was just invented- it was something done in soap operas or more schlocky stuff. Even a great show like The Fugitive, they had serialized elements by necessity, but the writers still went well out of their way to make each episode self-contained because it was a prestige show.

Nothing new about that; every new artistic trend arises in reaction to the previous norm, and each time the new way is The True Art™ and the old way is for people who Just Don't Get It. Look at the history of the arts in general:

Renaissance: Gah, our art is terrible! The ancients had such a better grasp of form, proportion, balance. Let's study that, and get back to making art the right way!

Baroque: That's all fine and all, but it's a bit boring, don't you think? Screw that, let's make art that really makes an impression! Be massive! Be ornate! Be complicated! Put froofy things all over the place! Go big or go home!

Enlightenment: Isn't that a bit much? Yeesh! Exercise some restraint! Art should be tasteful, simple, and natural! Discipline yourself, use your reason rather than shatning all over the place. See, look how pretty this is.

Romanticism: OMG that's so stuffy! So pedantic! You guys are missing the whole POINT of art!! It needs to be EXCITING and PASSIONATE and MOVE THE SENSES! Who cares about proper form, it's all about EMOTIONS and FEELS and MAGIC and ROMANCE and DRAMA and SPECTACLE and OMGomgomgomgomgomg SQEEEEEE!!!1!1!121231`!29%01#8`~~~~~

Modernism: I think I am going to get diabetes. Look. Simplicity is good. There's no need to express everything so literally—we have photographs for that. Give your audience some credit. God. Art should leave things up to the imagination rather than hitting you over the head with a sledgehammer. Or maybe we don't need even that much. Heck, maybe I will just draw some abstract shapes on a canvas, and as long as it looks cool, it's a win.

... and so on and so forth.

You know call me a philistine, but for me modernism is "Making art is tough, I'll just do something weird then write an essay explaining why it's art, the critics will love the essay and browbeat the public into liking it." which post-modernism expands upon by skipping the essay part and letting the critics find their own reason why "the art" is art.

...yeah I could totally flipping see that.

[Durandal_1707]

Y'all are kinda missing the point

[Darth Wedgius]

I finally saw the episode. So B'ellana Torres was tied up for several days? Now we know why there are no toilets on the Enterprise. Nanotech underwear.
It was an OK episode. I'll give it points for being different. Not a horrible note to leave a show on.

[CrypticMirror]

This is one of these episodes which I legit thought Chuck had already covered. I don't know why, maybe it is because it seems like an S1 Voyager episode. I thought I remembered it as a regular shuttle that Torres crashed rather than the DF and I managed to forget the Seven of Nine substory too. Actually, maybe the problem is with my memory.