Jellyn’s Collection of Curiosities

Summary: Chakotay’s religious vacation gets interrupted by a Kazon rite of passage.

It occurs to me again to wonder if Chakotay was stated to be from a specific nation or tribe? I can’t remember. Or is this a tribe with beliefs that they’ve assembled and/or made up? I don’t know enough to know.

That Kazon kid sounds like Quark’s nephew. I bet it is.

Credits say I’m right. Go me.

Neelix just said ‘Yes, sir… er.. ma’am–Captain!’ But of course he’s not speaking Federation Standard. Unless he’s picked it up while he’s been on the ship. Though it seems somewhat pointless to bother to do so with the ship translating everything. So was his Talaxian (or whatever language he speaks, as perhaps all Talaxians don’t speak the same language) ‘sir’ a gender neutral ‘sir’ or a male ‘sir’? Hmmmmm?

Think about it. All right.

I’m going to have trouble thinking of him as Kazon and not Ferengi. Although he looks and acts more like a Klingon, actually.

La la, bunch of stuff happens. Kes is useful on the away mission, so go Kes.

I was wondering what happened to the objects Chakotay brought with him. Turns out they’re back. Somehow. I don’t remember what all they were. Could he really replicate all of them? Or did they recover it from the wreckage of the shuttlecraft? Or did he have them tucked inside his uniform?

How many shuttlecraft did they bring with them? One down!

Summary: Janeway gets her historical geek on with Amelia Earhart.

Follow that rust!

It seems to me that the truck should’ve suffered some damage (other than rust!) from being in space. Is it really going to keep its water and its oil where they’re supposed to be? And both of those things freezing aren’t a problem? And the gas too apparently.

And it actually runs?!

Nobody knows SOS? I don’t necessarily expect them to know Morse Code or even recognize Morse Code, but.. if only the SOS was passed down through the centuries, it strikes me as useful. I wouldn’t be surprised if other people on Star Trek have used it.

“We could land the ship.”
“Are you sure that’s necessary?” Chakotay looked really excited when he asked that. Like he was hoping the answer was yes.

They never even considered maybe Neelix’s ship could go down there, and not risk everyone’s life and the safety of the ship. They were all just looking for an excuse to land on a planet.

Hey, there’s a plane. Do you think it’s Earhart’s plane? Considering they already spoiled it by having her name in the credits 10 minutes ago?

How can Janeway tell he’s human just by looking at him? (Not counting the clothes, which you couldn’t quite see yet.) I mean, he could be a Time Lord for all she knows.

Okay, given the title, and that Earhart disappeared in 1937, and the truck was a 37 Ford. Think about it. If the truck was a ’37, it wouldn’t be _from_ 1937. It had rust on it. It had manure in it. And dirt and grass on it. It looked like a well-used truck. Not a brand-spanking new one.

So it looks like they were all taken from Earth in the 1930s. I still think that truck was from the 40′s.

I was almost certain they were going to have the soldier speaking Japanese and not understanding them. I was half-ready to type a rant about the universal translator. But, they remembered. Whew. :)

Bah! No colony on Mars for another 97 years!

I thought they registered as alien humanoids, not humans.

Tsk. Everyone from 1937. I still don’t buy the truck thing.

Why would the descendants of the 37s call them the 37s? If you’re abducted from your home planet, along with 299 other people, are you really so concerned with WHAT YEAR IT IS? Wouldn’t you call yourselves the Humans? The Earthlings? The Abducted? Considering the Briori don’t seem to have time traveled at all. They actually did all this 400 years ago. So what did the date matter at _all_ until Voyager came into the picture?

Here’s a question they probably won’t address in this episode. Does the Prime Directive apply to an.. involuntarily colonized planet of humans?

Did anyone write Janeway/Earhart slash? Should I Google it?

Nobody even mentioned leaving any technology or information behind. They gave that alien pleasure planet all their stories. I know if I was a colony, I’d want at least that. Maybe all the news of Earth since I left.

And it’s just a shame that nobody was allowed and/or wanted to get on the ship. It would’ve been really cool to add a crewmember from that planet, or from 1937. Much better than a freaking Borg.

Summary: The crew is nearly killed. By cheese.

I hope we get to see the end of Janeway’s holonovel! I don’t want to be left in suspense as to what’s up with the children’s mother.

But I’m reminded again of how conveeenient it is that the holodecks run on a different energy system from the rest of the ship (somehow). Even though the technology is related to the transporters and presumably the replicators.

Tuvok will meet his ‘cadets’ on Deck 11 at 1900 hours. Is Deck 11 really, really small? That’s not very specific, is it?

Not only is Tuvok in charge of training these Maquis ‘cadets’ and of learning a valuable lesson, but he’s the one who solved the bio-neural gelpack contagion problem.

“Get the cheese to sickbay.” There’s a quote you never hear used.

Excellent trivia question though. You could ask what episode it’s used in. Because there’s only one episode where it could possibly have been used.

And not much more to comment on beyond that. Infection gone. Cadets bonded with Tuvok.

Summary: Dude responsible for creating a WMD and killing Neelix’s family comes on board and has various heart-to-hearts with him.

Oh, joy, back in the French bar slash pool hall.

Another alien doctor, this one Neelix claims is a mass murderer. Are there no real ‘do no harm’ doctors in this quadrant other than the holographic one?

Sounds like he’s not a medical doctor though. Or.. maybe he is. Now I’m confused.

Seska gets in trouble for giving a replicator to the Kazon, but Janeway has no trouble with this mass murderer studying the transporter technology?

Heh, his red flashlight medical scanner thingee made a slightly different noise when it hit Neelix’s communicator. Kudos to the sound effects people on that one.

This episode is not holding my attention. And it’s very heavy on the Neelix. I don’t know that we’ve had a single scene without him. And definitely no B plot. Okay, well, maybe a couple scenes with the evil doctor guy and no Neelix.

Blah blah angst.

Okay. When you discover a bad guy is up to no good, you don’t.. ask them what they’re doing. Then tell them you’re going to go tell the authorities. Okay. You dissemble. You’re like ‘Oh neato! Let me.. run and get my camera.’ Seriously.

‘animated suspension’? When you reverse those words, it doesn’t make the same sort of sense, does it?

You’d think death by fission would be rather less peaceful-looking than that.

Summary: Paris and Torres are captured by Vidiians who want them for organs or to dig coal or something.

For some reason, I thought plomeek soup was supposed to be served cold. But maybe I’m confusing it with Red Dwarf and gazpacho.

And.. once again Voyager is just hanging out around a planet. It’s like they expect Earth to eventually just wander by.

‘Bread crumbs’. Is that really a.. metaphor.. that needs explaining? I thought it was an established term. Or is that only with its ‘recent’ use on the internet? *wikipedias* Huh.. look at that. It’s entirely possible we’re looking at Voyager using outdated language already. Because I think if that was written today, it would’ve been:

Kim: Breadcrumbs.
Janeway: What sort of breadcrumbs?
Kim: Subspace transponders blah blah whatever he said.

What do they do to female actors’ breasts to make them big like that when they’re lying down?

How did this Vidiian doctor know which parts of Torres’s genetic code were Klingon and which not. Had he ever had a chance to study a Klingon _or_ a human before? I think they only took Neelix’s lungs that time. It’s not like her DNA should’ve been shouting ‘I’m Klingon! I’m human!’ It should’ve been doing far more specific things like ‘I’m forehead bumps’ ‘I’m black hair’.

Oh.. right, Paris and the redshirt (who’s in a yellow uniform). I guess they did have a couple humans to look at. Though, male ones.

Ha! Human Torres too. That’s interesting.

Wow. Durst wins the redshirt Most Horrific Ending medal.

Okay. What the frell? Everyone spends the ep saying ‘That’s impossible!’ when they find out Torres has been split into two. But back on the ship, holographic doc’s going to restore her Klingon DNA. No problem. Because /that/ part is easy?!

Summary: Some alien is taking over the crew one by one, and everyone gets paranoid.

I find a good number of holodeck stories to be absolutely dull. And this one was no exception. And I feel like I read this book, but I can’t think of which one it was.

I’d nitpick this idea that Chakotay’s bioneural energy was stolen and now he’s braindead, but I don’t know enough to be able to do that. But it sounds weird to me.

‘To be honest I don’t know what to think.’ That strikes me as something Paris has said before.

I’m surprised the computer so easily complied with the order to transfer all command codes to the doctor. Janeway didn’t even have to ask for any sort of override.

Whoa. Lucky thing you were able to retrieve the ejected warp core. You would’ve been screwed.

Still not quite sure I know who did what in that episode. Chakotay or the alien. Oh well. The end.

Oh.. no idea what the name of the ep had to do with the ep.

Summary: Beowulf holodeck program goes awry. Doctor saves the day.

I was about to type that Kim has made a habit of being transported tons of light years away from the rest of the crew lately. As the computer tells us that he’s not on board the ship. But.. looks like it’s time for a holodeck malfunction instead.

Hey, this isn’t a Q ep is it? There’s no Q pun in the title, so I suppose not. But, still, that’d be cool if it was.

Beowulf. That’s not good.

“Hair straight and raven black. Eyes bright with fierce fire. The burning gaze of a hero.” This qualifies as a description of Kim? I suppose if everyone else is blond.. but how would Tuvok know that was the case?

It just occurred to me that the holodeck lets the writers play with Earth history, Earth stories. (Yea, revelation that, right?) But apparently this is a driving need in them. Because if not for the holodeck, they’d be doing it on alien planets. Nazi planets and the like. Parallel development, which is ridiculous. Or ones where some Federation person went in and got the whole planet recreating human history. Also ridiculous. Or ones where telepathic aliens create a world the humans are familiar with. Or Q plays with them. Etc, etc.

And it all gets really ridiculous. At least the holodeck isn’t so ridiculous. Except that it keeps malfunctioning, because otherwise you have no dramatic tension when they can just ‘end program’ at any time, and they won’t get hurt, and etc and etc.

And of course I had to think of Doctor Who, where the writers get to play with Earth history and Earth stories all the time, by means of time travel. Which is natural and like.. roughly half the episodes.

So is Star Trek desperate to be like Doctor Who? Or are the two shows just expressing that innate need of the writers to.. play with Earth history?

(Though you wonder why Star Trek’s time travel almost always puts them in the US in the current time period of the show… like Dr. Who actually.. but, like, they never play with it more than that. If they want Nazis, they go put them on another planet.)

Anyway, I bet you Stargate does this too and I’ve never watched enough of it to say.

But back to the episode.. *unpause*

With how often the holodeck malfunctions, you’d think Voyager would have like extra, backup, backup, backup emergency failsafe KILL THE POWER TO THE HOLODECK things built in.

The holodecks are an outgrowth of transporter technology? Doesn’t that just make you feel safe? The transporters never have weird problems at all..

Makes me wonder why replicators don’t kill people more often.

Kes is dressed like a creamsicle. Which maybe I only thought of because I just ate some orange sherbet/vanilla ice cream. Which didn’t taste as much like a creamsicle as it should’ve, frankly.

Well, there’s a dark-haired guy. Granted his hair isn’t straight, and not raven black.

That was a really short bit before the next set of commercials. Jeesh.

I am warming to Janeway. She gets so excited by technology, new scientific discoveries, and just new knowledge in general. She embodies the best part of Starfleet that way.

Summary: A traitor on board has given the Kazon a replicator.

The crew’s on a planet, apparently looking for food. Carey brings Chakotay something that looks sort of like an apple, all excited about it. Neelix points out it’ll kill you. And my only thought is.. why didn’t the engineer have a tricorder with him? Oh, look, he does. Right on his hip there. So why isn’t he using it? Seems to me a tricorder could be useful when you’re looking for edible things on a new planet.

Seska has gone missing. That didn’t take her long to move up from ‘random character with a name’.

Ah, caves. The great spoilers of combadge signals. Ah, mushrooms. I’m sure those are perfectly fine to eat. Or maybe she actually thought to scan them.

Did the mushroom soup have a cream base? Where did they get milk from?

Chakotay: Were there any other reports of missing starships?
Janeway: Not to my knowledge.

Yea, really? Really? No missing ships? EVER? All accounted for, are they?

Because Tuvok said FEDERATION technology, not Starfleet. You don’t even need a missing Starfleet ship. Just _any_ Federation ship gone missing. None of those either, Captain?

The writers couldn’t come up with some other reason to deduce it was someone on their own crew that gave them the technology? Like, oh, I don’t know.. a serial number? A replicator pattern signature? Something?

Or, heck, all they have to do is assume for the moment that it’s possible it’s one of their own crew, and have the ‘some other ship has been here ahead of us’ as a backup theory that they couldn’t easily prove one way or another. Not, oh no, no missing ships at all. Federation ships don’t go missing! They’re speshul!

Oh, Chakotay, Chakotay. You were a little strict about the stolen soup ingredients. But now you’re all telling Seska there’s ‘concerns’ about her? Just because you were once a thing? Honestly.

The Kazon in sickbay is killed by the others. I saw it coming. Though I imagined a knife. It would’ve been more dramatic. I guess to me, a knife would’ve signified ‘you have dirtied him with your blood, we’re doing him a service by killing him’. Whereas the secret needle jab signalled ‘we can’t let him live and talk to you guys about our top sekrit plans’. So if they were truly being good little spies, they would’ve gone the knife route. See?

At least Seska knew to try to plant evidence pointing to her so that it’d point away from her. The Kazon could learn a thing or two.

I think one thing that always confused me about Voyager, the series, is that they’re supposedly flying home as fast as they can. Apart from the fact that they keep stopping for supplies or because a guy with a sexy accent asks them to. But what’s up with Seska’s plan of ‘forging alliances’ and whatnot? They should be passing a lot of these planets and races of people by. They ought to also eventually get past the area of space where the Kazon are hanging out as well. So as much as information and gossip about them can travel faster than they can.. still, most of these people are going to be far behind them very, very quickly.

And I can only assume they’re going to run into Seska again. Which is only going to lead me to wonder how she managed to travel faster than they did.

Voyager’s crew is invited to Fantasy Island.

By a guy with a sexay accent.

Chick zaps Harry to a far planet and tries to seduce him. He’s more concerned with being a long, long way from where he was. He didn’t even once stop to wonder if it was an illusion. Just assumed they’d traveled to a real place.

And now we learn what the episode’s name means. Prime Directive comes to bite them on the butt.

Stupid, stupid. Torres and other engineers looking at the technology when Janeway ordered her not to. Can’t they see it’d jeopardize negotiations?

Dude tempts Kim to take the technology. It strikes me as a test.

Tuvok surprises us. Going to exchange the library for the technology.

Then Torres surprises us by coming forward to admit she went against orders.

Guess it wasn’t a test after all.

Well, that episode revealed a few things about character and the crew interactions. I have to give it points for that.

Voyager’s found an element never discovered before. They go to investigate. They find some bodies.

Chakotay’s all like, let’s not disturb the bodies! And Janeway goes along with that and orders passive scans. Chakotay’s all like, I think we should really be more respectful and only like.. scan them with our eyeballs. And Janeway’s like.. okay!

And I’m like.. what? I understand why Chakotay might have that opinion. Especially if he’s culturally biased to respect the dead (like most humans, but I wouldn’t expect all aliens!). But why did the Captain go along with that so quickly? What happened to her scientific curiosity? And the fact that passive scans aren’t going to harm anything. No worse than looking. Just looking a little more closely.

Thanatologist sounds cooler than what it actually means. I actually thought it was related to magic. I’m sure I’ve seen it in fantasy before. I had to look it up. Study of dead people. Nice.

And now the doctor’s all reviving the dead, cutting out her tumor, growing her new brain tissue. And yet lungs were such a problem?!

I wish the Universal Translator could’ve taken at least a _second_ to work. Maybe build up a basis of vocabulary and grammar and syntax. Maybe taken just a second to have some data to work with. But no, everyone’s just chatting away.

Death, afterlife, blah blah blah.

Okay, if burial shrouds are passed from generation to generation, then the shrouds don’t go through the thingee, right? So how come Kim still had his uniform on? He should’ve come through nekkid.

Transporter chick gets a name. Seska. Who I had totally forgotten about.

Janeway tells Harry to write or paint or something.

The end.

Ex Post Facto would be a good name for a blog.

Oh, Tom, silly, silly, Tom. You join the ranks of Starfleet officers accused of crimes they didn’t commit. Wait, no, I meant.. you join the ranks of Starfleet officers who run afoul of another government’s weird laws or weird punishments.

And I already have less interest in this episode. Both for the main character (I like Tom okay, but he’s better in an ensemble or in small doses) and for the silly judiciary/legal/crime/thingee plot. And we’re only on the credits.

Hey, guest star Francis Guinan. Which reminds me I was going to rant a bit about why does every Star Trek think it needs a bar? 10-Forward, Quark’s, Paris’s French pool hall. Don’t have a bar? Create one in the holodeck! It’s just not sf/f without a pub!

*Snicker* Dr. Spock.

Hey, speaking of Doctors, Doctor Who just finished downloading.

I suppose that would’ve made a lot of people mad if the holographic doc chose that as a name. Though Dr. Rimmer would’ve amused me.

Um, wait. Aren’t a lot of races on Star Trek humanoid because of the.. something or other who seeded all these various planets? That explains the people. It does not explain why the Delta Quadrant can have a planet with a dog on it.

And these people are too freaking Western Earthling! Inviting people over for supper, having stew, and drinks. Eating with forks. (I think they were forks.) The only thing that looked at all ‘alien’ about it was the weird feathers and bumps on their heads.

Dump all those memories in a bowl and you can have a pensieve.

Now wait one second.. I swear I’ve seen that alien cityscape before…

I think Tom has a receding hairline.

‘Maybe I kill myself slowly because I lack the courage to do it quickly.’ Oh, please. This dialogue and plot is so lame!!

Tuvok has been married for 67 years. So you’d think he would’ve had plenty of time to study, not just security systems, tactics, equipment, weapons, etc, etc, but at least some field knowledge and experience in medicine. But I didn’t hear them saying ‘We need Tom to help in sickbay because while Tuvok is the best we’ve got, he’s busy as chief of security.’

I really do wonder at Starfleet sometimes. What are they teaching people? Bashir had never been in zero gravity before!! It’s like.. well, Starfleet medical is separate from the rest of it, but should there be such a division? The doctors know all about doctoring, but nothing about living in space. The security chiefs know all about security, but nothing about medical stuff. Just.. just.. jeesh.

Attack maneuver Kappa 010! Hee!

Too bad it’s probably the Greek letter. But, hey, if the galaxy had been larger, we could’ve had a Kappa Quadrant! Full of cucumbers!

blah blah, mind meld, innocent, blahdyblah.

Boring ep.