Post by @toddhorowitz@fediscience.org

2026-10-25 18:14 UTC

VOY S5 E12-13: &quot;Bride of Chaotica&quot; and &quot;Gravity&quot; I guess it&#39;s a testament to how good Voyager has gotten in S4-5 that I was so disappointed by &quot;Bride of Chaotica&quot; and &quot;Gravity&quot;. &quot;Bride&quot; is cute and inoffensive, I guess. And what red/green-blooded man/woman/enbie doesn&#39;t want to watch Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway as the Queen of the Spider People working her feminine wiles on Chaotica? But this episode was so slight as to be pointless. The idea of photonic life forms who see the holodeck characters as real and the real people as phantoms is interesting, but goes nowhere. They seem like they&#39;re the photonic equivalent of Starfleet, but all they do is say hi, determine that the natives are unfriendly, and start shooting. It doesn&#39;t occur to them that there&#39;s something wrong with the cardboard, melodramatic Chaotica, even if they can&#39;t figure out that he&#39;s a projection. The meta-commentary is mildly amusing (&quot;why are these &#39;previously on&#39; segments so misleading?&quot;), but doesn&#39;t go anywhere. My biggest problem is that Harry and Tom&#39;s holodeck adventure is exactly like their day jobs; they stand around a console saying things like &quot;we&#39;re losing altitude&quot;! #VOY #startrek

Replies (1)

@toddhorowitz@fediscience.org 2026-10-25 18:14

Meanwhile, "Gravity" is really terrible. The only good thing about it are the scenes with young Tuvok being all defiant and getting schooled by the Vulcan Master. The idea of a pocket universe where time moves more quickly than on Voyager is interesting, but wasted (Lower Decks made much better use of it). the Tuvok-Noss "romance" is awful and unconvincing, but the worst part is the way Paris keeps trying to harass Tuvok into returning Noss' affections. I'm surprised Paris made it off that planet alive. And, honestly, is romantic love really the only emotion worth exploring? There is absolutely nothing new here about love, emotions, Vulcans, or anything. this is not an improvement over Christine Chapel mooning over Spock in TOS. And then, on the Voyager side of things, you have not one but two artificial countdowns. First, the aliens are going to seal the anomaly "tomorrow" (whatever that means in space). but then we learn that the whole pocket universe is about to collapse. I guess that's so we know they can't leave Noss behind, but why have that deadline AND the alien space maintenance deadline? And why have the aliens move up their timetable? The compete artificiality robs the episode of true tension. And why are the aliens on the planet so determined to attack Noss' derelict ship? What do they think is in there? These two episodes are such a comedown from the level I have come to expect from Season 5. I'm hoping next week is a return to form.

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