Batman Boxset

I got the Batman Blu-ray boxset delivered from Amazon today and it's been a while since I owned a model of the classic Batmobile. A very nice package just a question of finding some shelf space to show it off and of course watch the episodes in their restored glory, mind you easier to spot the stunt double:)

My Random Journey Through Trek #20

The Next Generation
S4 "Future Imperfect"

The Enterprise sensors pick up some activity on an empty world, with reports of Romulan activity in the area they investigate with Riker and an away team beaming down. The planet is not a friendly place and as the methane levels rise an attempt to beam the team out is made and Riker wakes up in the sickbay 16 years later!
It turns out that he had contracted a virus which could lay dormant for an indefinite period but had become active and he had been in a coma for a couple of weeks with the memory loss a not uncommon by product. Things have certainly changed, Riker is now the Captain with a son and deceased wife, Geordie has "real" eyes and Picard is now an Admiral dealing with a Romulan peace treaty. Riker initially accepts everything but things slowly start to feel wrong, ongoing technical issues with the ship, some people acting not quite right and then his wife, yes he knew her but only as a hologram not a real woman. It's revealed that the Romulans have staged this elaborate charade when they captured Riker on the planet and they are attempting to get the location of a major facility used for defence of the neutral zone but even then things still don't make sense as his "son" is a constant and then it all becomes clear.

Future Imperfect is a very solid episode of TNG with some nice effects and a lot of opportunity for Frakes to really act and he does deliver. The story for me is pure Trek, it has multiple layers with drama and mystery but strip away all of that it's all heart and that can be a defining element of what Trek should always be about. It was great to see the late Andreas Katsulas return in his role as Tomalak and Geordie with his new "cloned" eyes worked well and to be honest the visor was always a joke and a weak plot element given the technology of the 24th century. I'm not sure the frumpy/curlers look for Crushers hairdo worked and the fallback of grey streaks should have looked stupid but didn't except for Deanna of course. Picard was rocking the Admiral look and well the alien, not a brilliant design but for a one off I guess it served it's purpose.

One of the better Next Gen episodes, enjoyed it a lot.

IMDB

Rating 8

My Random Journey Through Trek #19

Enterprise

S4 Observer Effect

As Reed and Mayweather play chess they discuss the ease of the game and the human race as represented by the crew, something is not quite right and we learn that these bodies are currently being occupied by advanced non-corporeal entities. One the planet below a deadly disease is awaiting the unwary and these beings observe the reactions of the "lower" races and judge them for their potential with first contact as a long term objective. Hoshi and Trip are returning to the ship via shuttle when Trip falls ill, they are moved to isolation but soon Hoshi shows symptoms and the pressure is on Phlox to find a solution. It turns out that the Klingons who had visited this world earlier had sacrificed the infected crew by destroying their shuttle, the Cardassians and many more races having failed to find a cure had abandon crew or killed them to protect their ships.
The ongoing efforts to save the infected crew by the Enterprise and her Captains determination sows a seed of doubt over the actions of the observers with the younger one expressing serious doubts until the breaking point after the deaths of the crew.

Trip has certainly looked better but then again he is dead.

Observer Effect is one of the my favourite episodes not because of the story as such or the acting but the episode serves my requirement for Enterprise as a prequel to the original series actually taking an element of TOS and weaving into this story. For me this is the only reason Enterprise should exist but we really didn't see it come close to fulfilling that potential until the final season. The revelation of who these observers were was a genuine pleasure and while it didn't quite fit into what we know from TOS the core aspect allowed this episode to work. A criticism would be that this episode could have been so much more but then again I thought Archer seeing the dead come back to life was a highlight of the episode and it was also a decent episode for Anthony Montgomery and Linda Park.

IMDB

Rating 8

Week off Work Goodies

Sometimes the pre-orders, bargains and temptation all come along at the same time :)

My Random Journey Through Trek #18

Star Trek

S1 The Alternative Factor

The Enterprise is minding it's own business doing what amounts to a routine scan of an uninhabited planet when an energy wave passes through the ship, Spock reports the sensors indicated the planet they are orbiting for a brief instant did not exist and now a single life form is being detected. The dilithium crystals have been drained and an emergency call from Starfleet indicates that the Enterprise is the only ship tasked with investigating these strange circumstances. The man found on the planet awakes in sickbay and calls himself Lazarus and claims he is in struggle to defeat a "monster" which was responsible for the death of his people but it's the "rip" in space which is keeping them apart. Spock concludes that these two entities are infact the same person but from different universes/realities, their transition between realms is what's causing the drain on the energy systems and disrupting the very fabric of all universes. Lazarus or at least one aspect of him steals the crystals from the ship to power his vessel left on the planet but which one can the crew trust, they both want the other dead but eventually after a mishap Kirk travels into the other universe and has a frank exchange of views with the more reasonable Lazarus and together they plan to trap both versions in the "tunnel" between universes forever to fight with no end in sight.

Lazarus played by Robert Brown

The Alternative Factor does not get a lot of love and on the surface you can understand why, the story while having a lot of merit is so disjointed and full of what amounts to endless amounts of padding and repetitive scenes you are left wondering what the hell was going on. The story behind the episode does explain a lot and we can thank These Are The Voyagers by Marc Cushman and other sources for original series information for the revelations. The studio it seems baulked at the interracial relationship intended for Lt Masters ( Janet MacLachlan ) and Lazarus which in part led to the intended lead actor ( John Drew Barrymore ) to leave the production. Faced with an episode in serious production trouble Shatner help bring Robert Brown into the part on very short notice and the running time filled with perhaps too many shots of Lazarus falling off the rocks and almost psychedelic like effects which seemed to go on forever. 

We blend right in.

To be fair Robert does make the most of a bad job, no disrespect to him at all and who knows if everything had gone to plan this season 1 episode could have been one of the early cornerstones of the modern representation of African Americans and women on network US television. Alas it was not to be and we left with an episode which is derided by many a Star Trek fan and this one has to agree, it's never going to be a voluntary rewatch as there are so many better original series episodes.

IMDB

Rating 3

My Random Journey Through Trek #17

Star Trek

S1 The Man Trap

In The Man Trap we have the Enterprise visiting the planet M-113 to provide the annual medicals to the research team, in a twist the wife of Professor Robert Crater is an old flame of Dr McCoy's maybe even the one that got away so a little gentle ribbing is called for when the Captain grabs some weeds and offers them to McCoy as flowers for Nancy. Nancy turns up at their camp and the three members of the landing party which comprises Kirk, McCoy and Darnell unbeknownst to them all see her differently, McCoy sees her as she was when he last knew her, Kirk as a middle aged woman and Darnell as a young piece of ass, sorry but that was the intent from his words and actions and no doubt if this episode was produced later she would have been wearing much less as well. Darnell is excused and is later joined by "his" version of Nancy who lures him away to his death which doesn't say a lot for the discipline of Starfleet junior officers and crew when on duty. Professor Crater arrives and it's obvious he is not happy about Starfleet being here, he would be delighted if they resupplied him and went on their way but after learning that they have met Nancy and that McCoy is the man she has spoken of he calms down probably realising that at this point playing the game out is the less suspicious option but then a scream and Darnell is found dead the remains of a plant in his mouth.

Spock examines the Borgia root and confirms that it's poisonous but it's revealed that Darnell died due to all the salt being removed from his body, faced with this threat which had never been documented Kirk returns to the planet with two more crewman but Crater flees and one of the crewman is found dead. 

DeForest was excellent in this scene

They return to the ship but now "Nancy" is disguised as crewman Green and is drawn towards the salt on the food tray Rand is taking to Sulu, when that fails she changes again and talks to Uhura in a new form and is able to speak fluent swahili but she escapes before he can suck her dry.  Nancy then visits McCoy and winds him around her finger and once asleep she takes his form and actually sits in on staff briefings and while acts a little "off" no one really seems to notice but as the noose tightens she flees to McCoy and when confronted by Kirk she attacks and McCoy seems helpless to act until Spock strikes her repeatedly and is then thrown across the room, McCoy realising his Nancy is gone asks for forgiveness and fires his phaser twice killing the creature, the last of it's race.

The Man Trap is a very good early episode of Star Trek, yes everyone is still finding their place but the story is solid and has some emotional and ethical quandaries embedded within it's well monster of the week format, Trek could have gone that way but for the strength of Roddenberry. The act of killing the last surviving member of an alien race despite it's action asks some serious questions, given "Nancy" had lived peacefully when a reliable supply of salt was offered it left the door open for the Federation to hold out the olive branch out regardless of the deaths caused but when you get right down to it the selfish desires of the Professor who kept the secrets of this world to himself.

Ok we have to mention the rather animated Gertrude aka Beauregard which thankfully didn't become a regular of the show but it was good to see Sulu as something other than a fly boy and there was certainly some chemistry between Spock and Sulu, granted his reaction could be taken as logical but that little bit of spark was certainly there which begrudgingly allows for the 2009 movie to make use of that element even if they did go a little over the top which TOS never did.... 

IMDB

Rating 8

USS Enterprise

Yeah that's my new Diamond Select USS Enterprise NCC 1701
Love the model but the supplied stand is a bit on the flimsy side and limits how you can position the ship for a more dynamic look rather than on an more or less even keel.

Ex Machina Review

While Christopher L. Bennett is an established author both in and out of Star Trek the novel Ex Machina is the first novel of his that I have read, it may be because he's written more for other aspects of Trek than the original series and perhaps because when the book was originally released I wasn't reading Trek after the market moved away from TOS to the more modern series which I had little interest in reading. I have started reading more Trek which is going hand in hand with more new original series offerings and as we all know once you scratch the surface there will be plenty of older work which will be new to you. Ex Machina is one of these old yet new gems released in 2005 and telling a story shortly after The Motion Picture when Kirk and the Enterprise crew were trying to get to know each other again and faced with a mission from their past when has personal and Federation wide implications.

In Ex Machina we see a Captain James Kirk who is very unsure of himself, his crew are openly voicing their doubts over his command and since most were hand picked by Will Decker and supported his multi-species approach to crewing a Starship there is plenty of blame being pointed to the new Captain in terms of how he got the command the loss of two elements of senior staff. Spock is perhaps in even worse condition, his contact with V'Ger shook him to the core and has led him to question all things Vulcan and dealing with some of his people on board just shows how far away from balance he has travelled. McCoy is perhaps in even worse condition, drafted back in Star Fleet, dealing with Chapel as an equal and the mission dealing with the people of Yonada and his brief romance with their leader Natira. On their new world the people are dealing with a life free from direct mental conditioning from a super computer disguised as a god and religious elements are clashing with more forward looking aspects of the government. As bombings and attacks grow leaving innocent men, women and children dead the Federation via Kirk decide to intervene first very gently but more aggressively but the solution is far more complex than anyone could envision as Kirk is seen by some to be a God killer after the V'ger incident and Natira by supporting modernisation and the throwing down of old beliefs complicite in the betrayal of their ancestors when Yonda was launched ten thousand years previously.

Ex Machina is a weighty tome, there is little of the light heartedness many of the previous TOS novels were happy to provide which mirrored the series itself but the subject matter deserves the more constrained and deep approach. This novel focuses on the characters and the changes that have taken place over the years after the first five year mission most of which have been artfully ignored in the media. I suspect print media is the logical place to explore much of what has gone on before we were once again introduced to Kirk and company in ST II with a more action/adventure story line. An excellent original series novel, fills a hole I wasn't really sure needed filling but now after reading the book the timeline is more complete and helps to build continuity which for me doesn't always means relying on television or the movies. Highly recommended and while I doubt I'll be looking at Christopher's work on other aspects of the franchise his Enterprise novels could very well turn up on my reading list :)

Official Site
Ex Machina Amazon US  UK

My Random Journey Through Trek #16

Star Trek

S2 The Doomsday Machine

A distress call from the USS Constellation leads to an investigation into a wake of devastation and what remains of a solar system, their crippled sister starship is found with only Commodore Matt Decker on board. He is emotionally unbalanced and raves about a "devil" and the loss of his crew beamed down to a planet which subsequently was obliterated by this "planet killer". Kirk and a few men stay onboard and Decker is returned to the Enterprise but when an object is detected, a huge machine with a gaping maw and an energy beam that can slice apart worlds the chase is on. A transporter failure caused by weapons fire limits the ability to beam the landing party back and the Doomsday machine then departs towards Rigel. Decker is a little upset believing a stand has to be made now rather then get word to Starfleet and the Federation and he seizes command of the Enterprise. The attack on the Doomsday machine is not going well and Kirk finally having some power restored to the Constellation attempts to distract the machine, it works and draws the attention away from the Enterprise. Communications are restored between the two ships and Kirk orders Spock to remove Decker from command, he does so and Decker is escorted off the bridge but escapes in a shuttlecraft and launches himself into the machine, the explosion causes a response and it's believed that a bigger explosion inside the machine may destroy it and that means the sacrifice of the Constellation. Kirk is the last man on the ship and steers it towards the Doomsday Machine and at the last second he is beamed off and the huge antimatter explosion within the machine succeeds in disabling it.

William Windom

The Doomsday Machine is regarded as one of the jewels in the Star Trek crown and I totally agree, it has some excellent performances and the story is both compelling, exciting and intense. We get all the drama and action you would expect from a feature but packed into a television episode so while the pacing is very high you don't come away with the feeling that it was rushed. 

So it's always good to see one of the Enterprise sister ships although they never seem to fare very well on their five year missions, Decker (William Windom who does an excellent job) seems like a competent commander but we meet him battle scarred and emotionally broken which at least explains some of his actions but there are some questions about this aspect of the episode. I don't really understand why a Commodore is in command of the Constellation, granted it gives him the leverage to grasp command of the Enterprise but there is no question McCoy had the regulations and opportunity to prevent that, Decker had no right to be on the bridge of any ship in his condition as witnessed by the landing party that found him. It was a little disappointing that Lt Palmer (Elizabeth Rogers) at communications got quite a few lines which begs the question where was Uhura for this episode but Scotty and Sulu got some solid screen time. I had to smile when Scotty pointed out how shall we say finicky the transporter was considering how much use it gets but when the plot requires everything can be a death trap and again a shuttle launch only indicated after the fact, Starfleet security and procedures need serious updating. We've had nice touches that retconned that this could have been created to take on the Borg by a long lost race is interesting and Matt being the father to Will Decker who we meet in The Motion Picture just makes so much sense.

Finally it's also worth pointing out that this episode got a very impressive update via the restoration project, the CGI really adds a whole new level to the existing core story and takes nothing away, credit to everyone involved in polishing this episode into a masterpiece of Star Trek and one of my favourite episodes of the franchise.

IMDB

Rating   9

Goodies

I finally picked up Frozen on Blu-ray part of the Disney buy one get one free but alas there was no other movie I needed or really wanted but I did like the shiny covers so got Tangled as a double dip and covered most of the cost by using my loyalty points with the retailer. I also got Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook which is linked to the Discworld novel Raising Steam.

Soundtracks

I must be going through some sort of phase because all I seem to be buying music wise are soundtrack albums, this time Enterprise and Enchanted with Arrow season 2 on it's way from the states as I type:)

Imports

Well I got fed up with waiting for a UK release of the third season of Once Upon A Time on Blu-ray and imported a region free copy from the US via Movietyme and also imported Year Zero (Hardback) a novel by Rob Reid since the UK price was ridiculous.

Sunday Treats

An unexpected bonus of Amazon Prime was that my pre-order for season 2 of Arrow on Blu-ray arrived this sunday morning along with a original series Star Trek novel by Christopher L. Bennett. I may have already watched three episodes of Arrow and the season 1 recap:)

My Random Journey Through Trek #15

The Next Generation

S4 Reunion

A Klingon battle cruiser hails the Enterprise, onboard is Ambassador K'Ehleyr who has a little surprise of Worf in the form of a young boy, their son. She also informs Picard he has been chosen to act as the arbitrator of the Klingon succession to the head of the council, he is reluctant but as the current chancellor informs him to refuse would be an insult against the Klingon Empire but as treachery is involved and the Duras family the Federation needs to keep their eye on the situation. The two rivals for the council leadership meet and a bomb goes off and the investigation reveals that Romulan technology was part of the design and both Picard and Worf know of at least one Klingon family who have links to that empire. K'Ehleyr suspicious of Duras and more so of Worf and his refusal to talk about his prior dealings with the council learns the truth and she is murdered by Duras and in Klingon tradition despite his outcast status the face she was Worf's mate and mother to his son he gains access to Duras and in a duel kills him. Worf then dumps Alexander on his parents back on Earth and Gowron is given leadership of the Klingon high council and Worf has to accept that he may have followed Klingon tradition but he betrayed the trust of Starfleet and his Captain.

K'mpec played by Charles Cooper

So I glanced at the wiki before watching this episode and of course there is Alexander and my spirits fell but I pressed play and settled in to watch the episode. Of course it all came flooding back and even some of the Worf family drama failed to take the shine off an excellent piece of drama which drew upon what little they had written of Worf's back story and more so of the Klingons. It's also worth noting that the makeup department have really nailed the prosthetics of creating Klingons, even K'Ehleyr ( Suzie Plakson ) looked ok, the boy as well. Duras was wonderfully slimy but hats off to Robert O'Reilly who played Gowron with such an under-stated manner it emphasised his power and we all know we are going to see more of the wild eyed one in the future.

Reunion proved to be an excellent episode for the Klingon story line and a strong episode for Worf, it underlines his ongoing struggle to balance his human upbringing with his Klingon nature and pushes him into new directions as he has to deal with a son who will be affected by the decisions he has and will make. Picard handles this situation well, strength and control in a potential mine field which again pays off in the years to come and of course more Romulan shenanigans:)

A great episode, thoroughly enjoyed it.

IMDB

Rating   9

My Random Journey Through Trek #14

Enterprise

S3 Anomaly

The Enterprise is traversing the expanse and is affected by some spatial anomalies which wrench the structure of the ship and the very laws that govern the technology of the ships systems, soon they come across a derelict ship showing signs of battle damage and they investigate. An alien craft appears and closes quickly with weapons armed, the ships engage in battle and in the midst of the chaos aliens beam over to Enterprise and begin to strip the ship of supplies, weapons and components from the engines. The Oosarian pirates flee into warp leaving Enterprise limping along using the sub-light drive but fortunately they are able to track the ion signature of the "pirate" ship and finally come across a break in the trail which indicates a hidden location. The ship enters this area of space and a huge sphere is discovered, they enter via the existing portal and realise this sphere is generating huge amounts of energy and could be responsible for the anomalies in this area of the expanse and more importantly they find a cache of supplies including almost all of those taken from the ship. The captured pirate confirms that his ship had destroyed a Xindi vessel a few weeks earlier and after Archer threatens him with death and maybe a little torture he agrees to help and when the Oosarian ship returns they are able to access their database and steal the information relating to the Xindi and after the battle Archer releases the pirate. They now have far more information on the Xinda and also know how to protect themselves from the anomalies, the spheres still remain a mystery though.

Anomaly was a pretty strong episode which helped to give the third season a good kick off however I was never really happy with how Archer acted in regards to the captured pirate. Yes time is of the essence and the Oosarian have probably proved themselves to be outside of the realm of where negotiation could have worked. However rushing to the prisoner and pretty much showing all your cards straight away rarely works, he may have got more information easier if he had played the prisoner rather than act like a deranged and desperate individual. I really liked the scene with the Maco's preparing to investigate the alien derelict, unlike the awful gel scenes we had men and women changing and gearing up with no unease or interesting in the fact there was flesh on display, they acted professionally and realistically unlike say Kirk eyeballing Marcus in the recent Trek movie.

So the spheres are revealed, well they are a big mystery awaiting the crew of the Enterprise and lets not forget the revelation that the Enterprise is badly equipped for operating in the Expanse but a solution has been found, as we know that will cause problems as well. Overall a good episode, easy to watch again and still holds up but why wasn't Julia Rose (Corporal McKenzie) used again, semi recurring Maco's and crew in general really adds to the realism of this sort of show.

IMDB

Rating  8

My Random Journey Through Trek #13

TNG

S6 & S7 Descent

Descent is the season six finale and the season seven premiere two parter and deals with Data, the Borg and Lore returns just to spice things up a little. So the episode kicks off with Data playing poker with some historical figures on the holodeck including Mr Stephen Hawking, a nice fun scene but then a distress call reveals all an outpost full of dead Starfleet personnel and then the Borg make their appearance resulting in Data killing one and experiencing a very definite emotion. As Starfleet mobilises for a potential Borg invasion Data tries to recreate the emotion and he describes it a mix of fear and pleasure. Another attack results in the capture of a drone who convinces Data to free him and together they flee the Enterprise but the ship is able to track the shuttle through the energy vortex which is being used to outperform standard warp travel and reveal the base of operations.

It turns out that Lore had met up with the Borg who had been directly affected by the individuality imposed on Hugh (I, Borg) and had filled in a very obvious gap in their collective and by extension giving him an almost unstoppable killing machine army to aide in his desire to rid the galaxy of those pesky biologic lifeforms. La Forge, Troi and Picard are captured and Data begins to experiment on Geordie which gives us some good dialogue between the two "friends" but it still requires a technological approach to make a wedge between the two brothers. Meanwhile Crusher is in charge of the Enterprise and is in battle with the Borg ship, she does a pretty good job but as always it requires quite a bit of luck and good fortune. Riker and Worf are captured by Hugh and the cast offs from Lore's experiments but eventually everything comes together and when push comes to shove Data (with a little help) turns on his brother and after the battle takes away the emotion chip that had been built for him an co-opted by Lore.

I wasn't a huge fan of Descent when I originally watched it and while I could appreciate the work of Brent in the two roles Lore was never a plus point of the show for me. That said this wasn't a terrible episode to use as a two parter season cliffhanger but it pales a little compared to some examples of the tv story telling "keep 'em interested" ideals. I thought it was a little amusing that everyone was in standard uniform when on the planet, this was a covert mission and well too many times you had to just live with it to allow the episode to continue. It was interesting to see Crusher in command and supported by officers other than the main cast, Alex Datcher as Ensign Zandra Taitt was excellent and worked well with higher ranked Lieutenant Barnaby ( James Horan ) who later was the mysterious figure within the temporal cold war. It was also fun to see Benito Martinez down in the transporter room, he's more familiar to me on The Shield, Saving Grace and Sons of Anarchy. One last bit of trivia, Jonathan Del Arco who played Hugh is now a recurring character on The Closer and now Major Crimes, it's always fun to recognise actors who have moved up their professional ladder in the years since a guest spot on a scifi show many moons ago:)

IMDB I & II

Rating  5 & 5

5th Passenger Trailer

5th Passenger - Official Trailer - HD from scott baker on Vimeo.
http://www.5thpassenger.com/

Directed By Scott Baker
Written by Scott Baker and Morgan Lariah
Director of Photography and Editor Prince Bagdasarian
Tim Russ as Franklin
Morgan Lariah as Miller
Manu Intiraymi as Thompson
Curtis Fortier as Myers

Originally released a year ago but it looks like there is some news just on the horizon.

My Random Journey Through Trek #12

Voyager

S7 Nightingale

Well I guess there is no reason why a random number generator would give the next number up from it's previous calculations so that means another episode of Voyager the episode which was aired the week after my 11th random trek episode:)

So in Nightingale Voyager has landed on a planet for a week long overhaul and despite Harry's little adventure last week he along with Seven is once again in the flyer looking this time for dilithium but ends up in a shooting war between two ships, snowed by we're a poor medical ship he gets involved and seizes the opportunity to take command. To be honest I'm always amazed how Starfleet personnel can immediately understand and manipulate alien computers and technology, nothing phased Harry, at least for a while.

Meanwhile the other party in the small conflict has befriended Voyager and is dealing in good faith but for reasons best explained by Janeway she lets Harry go off on an extended adventure and well what do you know these new "friends" were not exactly telling the truth and at the end of the day we really don't know if either of the two races/societies were being totally honest. Oh and Icheb has misunderstood B'Elanna's attempts at being friendly and bringing him into the fold for a romantic interest, oh the humour.

Familiar design but new paintjob

Nightingale is a pretty forgettable episode in fact it took a while before I even remembered what was going on, both plots are weak but at least the CGI was upto spec although the composite of Voyager on the planet lacked any real polish. Nice to see Ron Glass guest starring as well, known to me now from his time on Firefly.

IMDB

Rating  3

Star Trek: The Compendium

A very nice four disc blu-ray package but what's important is that they have finally incorporated the extended commentary feature for Into Darkness onto the disc, now I have seen it via itunes but for my setup it's not the most ideal way to watch the feature.
Amazon US

My Random Journey Through Trek #11

Voyager

S7 Body and Soul 

This is a Seven and Doctor episode even though we do see too much of the Doctor although thanks to Jeri Ryan's acting talent his mannerisms and character comes through her motions and dialogue delivery. So the Delta Flyer flew by PDH is attacked by a ship as they have been detected to be carrying Photonics, it seems this culture is in the middle of a social and political upheaval as the holograms fight for well I guess we can assume self determination and freedom. To save the Doctor from being wiped Seven loads his data into her network and in essence allows the Doctor to control her body and thus we have the comedy and a little drama plus the joy of seeing the Doctor experience a few firsts via cheesecake and attraction to Lt. Jaryn played by Meghan Gallagher.

The smaller "b" plot deals with Tuvok and his seven year itch which can be handled to a degree by satiating his emotions via a holographic representation of his wife but the use of the holodeck is restricted due to the threat of the local civilisation which adds some drama on board the Voyager and smirks from Tom and well meaning annoyance from Neelix:)

Overall I enjoyed this episode, Jeri Ryan was exceptional mimicking Robert Picardo's portrayal for the Doctor with skill and precision and there was an awful lot of fun to be had as the two of them trade barbs between bouts of being themselves. It is a pity their dynamic was not explored to a greater degree, they were made for eachother but the issues of the rights of sentient beings particularly holographic are addressed.

IMDB

Rating  8