VOY - Prey

[9ansean]

The all time champion Stupid Neelix Moment is still "Life Line" - honestly, they're better when they're a stretch. It's not even hard to see what could go wrong with Neelix in the security team.

What seems to be lost in the fray here, is the novelty of Tuvok asking Neelix for help. Totally out of character!

Yeah the stretches are easily the best. I almost mentioned "Life Line." Then I remember "Once" where it was actually a dream sequences where Neelix was heard off camera saying "I'm dying." Which got the moment just because it didn't happen, even it was a dream so he wasn't going to stay died anyway.

Tuvok looking for Neelix to defend was bizarre. Especially since you're asking for defense from an admitted draft dodger. I'm surprised Chuck didn't point that out or suggest this was secretly Tuvok's plan to finally get rid of him.

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

The all time champion Stupid Neelix Moment is still "Life Line" - honestly, they're better when they're a stretch. It's not even hard to see what could go wrong with Neelix in the security team.

What seems to be lost in the fray here, is the novelty of Tuvok asking Neelix for help. Totally out of character!

I'm surprised Chuck didn't point that out or suggest this was secretly Tuvok's plan to finally get rid of him.

That's what I was gonna say. If I were Tuvok I'd find an excuse to put Neelix in harm's way.

[FaxModem1]

I don't remember the Hirogen differentiating in size.

In their first physical appearance, the whole point was they dwarfed the Voyager crew.

[clearspira]

I don't remember the Hirogen differentiating in size.

In their first physical appearance, the whole point was they dwarfed the Voyager crew.

Wow, yeah that's pretty blatant. That picture makes even Seven's padded boobs look small let alone her body. Wasn't their size a plot point as well, enabling them as it did to overpower a cyborg and a Vulcan with ease?

[Taurian Patriot]

I have the mental image of a mushroom cloud but actually it's just an impenetrable swarm of scorpions now and it's lovely and terrifying.

Yeah, I wouldn't even breathe a word about a scorpion-nuke around Janeway. Chuck may suggest it's nonsense, but really that just means she could hand the job to Seven and Tom, and the prototype would be ready in a week.

[Jonathan101]

Consequently all Janeway's talk in Prey about compassion comes off like patronizing crap! Since two weeks in a row now she shows more compassion for hostile strangers than a member of her own crew who badly needs her guidance.

It honestly makes the paranoid breakdown Seven would later have in The Voyager Conspiracy a little easier to buy in hindsight. Since it must be very hard for anyone to know who to trust when your very identity is depend to a "collective" who can't even agree on the own single agenda at times and all of whom have some reason to doubt your own individual thinking ability that THEY unleashed in the first place.

I don't think it's "patronising crap" when her idea of compassion in this case is "don't murder an injured enemy combatant that is going out of its' way not to kill any of you and being hunted by for sport by a race of sociopaths when its' just trying to get home".

Species 8472 wasn't actually being hostile in that moment (well, it was trying to be as un-hostile as possible), and trying to send it home was the right call. Janeway may have failed to properly explain why to Seven, but Seven wasn't actually thinking like an individual in this episode despite her protestations to the contrary- her attitude of destroying the Hirogen and later Species 8472 because they were a threat is precisely how a Borg would think.

Janeway (read- the writers / episode) could have made her case better perhaps, but she was basically in the right.

[TGLS]

I don't remember the Hirogen differentiating in size.

In their first physical appearance, the whole point was they dwarfed the Voyager crew.

Wow, yeah that's pretty blatant. That picture makes even Seven's padded boobs look small let alone her body. Wasn't their size a plot point as well, enabling them as it did to overpower a cyborg and a Vulcan with ease?

I can only assume that they ended up eliminating the size thing after they decided to have Hirogen physically on Voyager. Forced perspective shots can work (as seen in the screenshot), but if you put them on sets the viewers see weekly someone would cry foul. "What are these the extra large corridors they use? Did they supersize the medical bay?"

[Wolf359]

Either the director of this episode is crap or the security guards on the USS Over Gay are useless. Twice in this episode can we see guards in the background holding phaser rifles, but not with the handle so they’re ready to fire if the alien escapes, but somewhere near the stock/back, which I’d have thought would waste precious seconds moving their hands to the trigger... Or is that a thing in real life? Because none of the main cast do it, and I’ve never seen it in any other episode.

[clearspira]

Either the director of this episode is crap or the security guards on the USS Over Gay are useless. Twice in this episode can we see guards in the background holding phaser rifles, but not with the handle so they’re ready to fire if the alien escapes, but somewhere near the stock/back, which I’d have thought would waste precious seconds moving their hands to the trigger... Or is that a thing in real life? Because none of the main cast do it, and I’ve never seen it in any other episode.

Whenever I have seen a cop hold a gun at the ready he has his fingers resting beside the trigger and with the safety on. All he needs to do is raise it, flick it, and fire.

Starfleet Security has always been amusing in its incompetence. Makes you wonder if only the Academy bottom rungers are offered these jobs? Kind of the equivalent of Hogwarts. You've got the brave like Kirk and Picard in Gryffindor, savants like Wesley and Spock in Ravenclaw, the ambitious like Kim and Nog in Slytherin, and the random security guards in Hufflepuff.

''Do you still want to see the stars? Well with your low test scores the only way you are doing that is by putting on this redshirt, bitch. Get going.''

[9ansean]

Consequently all Janeway's talk in Prey about compassion comes off like patronizing crap! Since two weeks in a row now she shows more compassion for hostile strangers than a member of her own crew who badly needs her guidance.

It honestly makes the paranoid breakdown Seven would later have in The Voyager Conspiracy a little easier to buy in hindsight. Since it must be very hard for anyone to know who to trust when your very identity is depend to a "collective" who can't even agree on the own single agenda at times and all of whom have some reason to doubt your own individual thinking ability that THEY unleashed in the first place.

I don't think it's "patronising crap" when her idea of compassion in this case is "don't murder an injured enemy combatant that is going out of its' way not to kill any of you and being hunted by for sport by a race of sociopaths when its' just trying to get home".

Species 8472 wasn't actually being hostile in that moment (well, it was trying to be as un-hostile as possible), and trying to send it home was the right call. Janeway may have failed to properly explain why to Seven, but Seven wasn't actually thinking like an individual in this episode despite her protestations to the contrary- her attitude of destroying the Hirogen and later Species 8472 because they were a threat is precisely how a Borg would think.

Janeway (read- the writers / episode) could have made her case better perhaps, but she was basically in the right.

I was comparing Janeway's words in Prey to her attitude and inaction in Retrospect. Yes in this episode she was basically in the right and Seven did go too far. But in the follow up Seven was trying to be accommodating in light of what had happened and was even willing to accept another punishment when she punched Kovin in the face. Even though he was the one getting creepy long before the EMH accused him of anything. She may have overreacted but that was the full extent of her making any mistakes.

Unless you count trusting the word of a doctor who built up a strong case for her defending individual rights and autonomy based on evidence HE conjured up only to take it all back based on a few technicalities that really never confirm either version of events, only raising more questions.

Janeway initially seems to handle that situation right: saying I can't punish you for ever minor offense (all admit Seven's action in Prey weren't minor), but I can't keep keep letting you off with a slap on the wrist either. She even admits to Kovin that I'm willing to risk losing this weapons deal (which I believe the crew wanted given the ongoing Hirogen threat) rather than let anyone getting away with assaulting a crew member. But then it all goes out the widow once the Borg memory questions are raised and than never followed up upon.

To quote Michelle Erica Green: (Janeway not only rejects Seven’s sense of violation but expects Seven to reject it as well. One week Seven is ordered to become an individual whether she wants to or not; the next she’s being taught not to trust her own memories when they’re uncomfortable for the people who are her parental figures as well as her senior officers. Even if Janeway is persuaded that Seven’s memories are wrong, she could still validate Seven’s experiences, investigate what’s affecting her memory, order the Doctor to look for the underlying trauma that Seven is apparently reliving.)

Mind you, I'm not saying that either Species 8472 needed to die or that Kovin should've been punished for something they couldn't prove. I just thing find in harder to appreciate the struggle for mentor and student to understand one another in this episode when it leads directly to a story that's infuriating in it's disregard for Seven's well being rather than allowing that part of her development to continue.