Season 5 Ep 11 / 12 "Latent Image"/ "Bride Of Chaotica!"
Dec 17, 2015 10:02:28 GMT -5
Jean Luc de Lemur likes this
Post by Prole Hole on Dec 17, 2015 10:02:28 GMT -5
Season Five, Episode 11 - "Latent Image"
Say cheesy!
OK third time lucky. One of the things about writing reviews like this is that the reader, obviously, only gets to see the end result. So while everything looks natural and well placed on the page with my timelessly artful arguments (ahem) it doesn't really show what's gone on to get to that point. This is my third attempt to start writing a review of "Latent Image" after two false starts, and there's a bit of me that thinks this might be fairly representative of the episode as well, which takes a few fits and starts to get going but once it does it hums along quite well. But, while there's no denying "Latent Image" is a generally decent episode, it never quite seems to fulfil its promise either (which I have a feeling may also be true of this review, especially by the time you get to the closing paragraph). Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of good material here, and this is better in every single regard than "Nothing Human", the last episode to give the Doctor centre stage and engage in a fairly typical morality debate. But there's definitely a feeling of familiarity here, of something that's been done before, so let's take a little look at that and see if there's anything revealing about it.
Because that feeling of familiarity is not something that does the episode any real favours. It's not just that "Nothing Human" was only three episodes ago and so traipsing out another chance for the Doctor to go through his moral and ethical paces feels a little uninventive, even if this one is done substantially better. But the developments of the Doctor's personality is something that feels like it's been settled for some time now as well, and so to return to it here feels a little... peculiar, to say the least. It's not that this is a bad script, but it feels like it belong in, say, Season Three, maybe some time after something like "The Swarm" where this acts as the final capper on the Doctor's developing individuality. Now to be fair, you could take this as an acknowledgement that character progressions aren't linear and sometimes you slide back as well as moving forward and indeed the ongoing investment in character work done with Seven shows how successfully this can be done. But there's not really those kind of beats to this episode, because there is no backsliding - it just feels like it was produced somewhat out of time. Janeway's comments about the Doctor seem especially egregious in this regard - she's already confronted her prejudice over the fact that the origin of the Doctor's life is technological rather than biological, so for it to be brought up here again, without any surrounding justification, just feels like we're trailing over a debate that's already been won. And it's not like this isn't an important piece of character development for the Doctor, because of course it is, it's just that it feels like it's reaching a conclusion that's already been reached, which is that the Doctor is an individual and thus his rights as an individual should be respected. Which, fine. But there's also a slight problem here, and it's one the episode brings up then slightly swerves away from, which is a pity because it would have made quite a refreshing change on the more "normal" ethical debate we eventually end up with. And it's this. When the Doctor confronts Janeway she points out that when she chose to reprogram him, she did it for the good of the crew, and for the long-term welfare of the Doctor. The Doctor protests, and from this stems the ethical argument of whether Janeway has the right to take action. But the thing is - this is a Starfleet vessel, and neither the Doctor nor Janeway are civilians. When someone, anyone, joins up to serve in the armed forces (and while you can argue that Starfleet itself isn't exclusively military, it's clear from "Caretaker" that Voyager's primary missions are meant to be) they give up some of the liberties and freedoms that a civilian would have. Whether that is desirable or not is a separate question, but it does happen. So when Janeway says she reprogrammed the Doctor for the good of the ship and the crew, placing that ahead of his rights as an individual, there isn't really a lot of argument to be had. Yes a "third way" solution would be preferable, and indeed is eventually what the episode gets around to, but she had to make a judgement call for the welfare of the entire crew, and that's what she did. As a result, there just isn't a vast amount of ethics to debate here. Or to put it another way, while the ethical debates on the surface are perfectly fine, they feel hollow because the episode doesn’t quite seem to understand the implications of its own position.
That's another thing which makes the episode seem over-familiar, then - the cast having to gamely up the material. Both Picardo and Mulgrew are on fine form here, so there's really not much in the way of surprise when we discover that they're capable of it, but it still feels just a touch frustrating, because this falls just a few centimetres away from the finishing line of excellence. Picardo, in particular, seems to be paying really close attention to the material here, and modulates his performance to match, and in pairing him with Mulgrew the script wisely gives him someone he can really play off. Really, so many of the scenes here are a gift to an actor of Picardo's quality, but his final, lost scenes on the holodeck play out in a way we haven't quite seen with the Doctor before, so he gets a few moments where he can push the Doctor just that little bit further than usual. It's all solid character work (that we've seen before) in service of a perfectly decent ethical quandary (that we've seen before). The whole debate over who the Doctor saves and who he allows to die feels a bit peculiar as well. I mean beyond the obvious necessity of "regular cast member saved over anonymous redshirt" it just doesn't seem like that much to get worked up over. Not that it's not a difficult situation, and the Doctor does explicitly say that his program is damaged which presumably leads to this situation in the first place, but it seems like comparatively small fry. There should be more of an attempt to explain the conflict the Doctor feels either in terms of his emerging "soul" or because of the damage done to his program - to just have it sit there relatively unexplained undermines it and makes it seem more arbitrary than it needs to.
So look, anyway, I'm just rambling about the place here. "Latent Image" is fine, really it is, but under all the flash of ethics on the surface there's something relatively straightforward about the episode that means it never really elevates itself to something special. That feeling of familiarity I mentioned at the beginning doesn't really elucidate much of anything in the end, because all that's really there is a nagging sense that we've seen all this before. Because we have. The alien attack is incredibly perfunctory, even given that it's only meant to be there to get the story going (we don't even get a reason for the attack, which is especially shoddy). The Janeway/Seven scene, where Janeway is forced to face up to her doubts as to the nature of the Doctor, is something we've already visited, both with Seven and the Doctor, so it adds nothing much. This is meant to be a big emotional beat for the Doctor, finally facing the reality of his quest to be something more than his programming, and indeed it is. Again. And Picardo plays the hell out of it, no surprise. But Ok, let's give this episode the benefit of the doubt and say here, finally, beyond all question, the Doctor qualifies as an emergent life-form, and is clearly, unambiguously not just a hologram. He's something else. He's more. Good. Great. Message received and understood.
End transmission.
Stray Observations:
• Well, just the usual praise for Picardo and Mulgrew, who are great. Mulgrew seems rather re-energized after last week, actually, having not had a terrific amount to do this season.
• The Doctor's holo-imaging hobby actually having consequence, having been seen many times in the past, is an unexpectedly great way to use something that was clearly just developed to be a bit of an annoying habit. That's definitely something to this episode's benefit.
• Engisn Redshirt! Calling Redshit Engisn to the shuttlebay!
• While it's understandable that Kes isn't in the Season Three flashbacks that we get to see it would have been a nice touch if she had at least been referred to, along the lines of, "oh she'll join the party when she's finished in sickbay." Ah well.
• Anonymous mission, anonymous alien, anonymous ensign. See a pattern?
• Still that last scene is great, and it's a very unusual way to end an episode (Janeway's clearly been off the coffee if she fell asleep). And though things are back to normal by next week, it's really nice that they establish that this really is something that it takes time for the Doctor to get over, and we get to physically see that process in action. That's definitely another plus for this episode.
Season Five, Episode 12 - "Bride Of Chaotica!"
Guardians Of The Galaxy
One of the most sublimely perfect episodes in all of Star Trek, "Bride Of Chatotica!" is an absolute joy from its first moment to its final frame. Chances are you know that already, though, so that's not an especially insightful observation. Since everything with "Chaotica!" is so perfect, I think I'm going to take this opportunity to have this be the "Any Other Business" review of the season and just wallow in the pleasure of it, because although there's lots of potentially interesting stuff to explore about how this is Star Trek's way of showing it's roots and affectionately acknowledging where it came from, and the historiography of how Captain Proton relates to both the Flash Gordon serials its aping and Star Trek itself, and... but to be honest I just feel like having fun with this one. So:
Any Other Business:
• The very first thing that strikes about this episode, even before the first image, is the wonderful recreation of 30s/40s over-the-top action-serial music, and it is absolutely (sorry about this) note perfect. Thanks, David Bell!
• Proton's secretary has a scream that could score glass, in line with all "heroines" of the era.
• I have an inexpressible love for Satan's Robot, who is absolutely never not perfect when on-screen. Even the camp way it "looks around" when looking between two people in a conversation is done to perfection, or the way it mutters, "intruders" under its breath after being slapped and told to keep quiet.
• The cuts and wipes between "scenes" are similarly a perfect evocation of a bygone age (and also draw an implicit line between the roots of Star Trek and Star Wars, the latter of which uses the same style of wipes).
• The line Tom has about, "I've been studying how past generations view the future" is referring to a real thing, which is called retro-futurism and is exactly as he describes it - how the past view the future (and is distinct from something like steampunk, which is more about envisioning modern technology with a historical construction). Generally retro-futurism covers the period from about 1930 to about 1965ish (so until roughly when things moved into a post-modernist era), and in artistic terms tends towards modernism and art deco, and it is genuinely fascinating.
• The idea of "photonic life forms" is both really interesting and, once again, in line with Voyager's expansively ambitious use of holo-technology, although this is taking it in an entirely new direction. And though it's been pointed out before, it's really fascinating that they can't detect "our" life-forms as real.
• Chaotica himself is a masterful Ming The Merciless stand-in/send-up, and his lightning-covered costume is an absolute marvel (and links nicely with his "lightning shield").
• Poor Lonzac. Forever cast in his master's fiendish shadow!
• So, so many wonderful/terrible puns, from "things didn't work out as black and white as they imagined" (ho ho) to Arachnia's reference to Chaotica keeping her pheromones, "I didn't think you were the scent-imental type".
• The attention to detail in the set designs cannot be praised highly enough, even down to teeny tiny details like the intentional wobble of the console in Proton's rocket ship when Harry leans on it in frustration.
• Tuvok looks surprisingly comfortable striding about the Captain Proton set, and of course gets plenty of chances to be in black and white like his clear, obvious inspiration, Betty Davis. It’s a shame we don't get to see him in costume.
• Though speaking of "in costume", while Harry and Tom's consumes look great and appropriately period, absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, comes close to seeing Janeway in her Arachnia get-up.
• The Doctor as "President Of Earth" is an affectionate nod to his ego, especially as he says he had to "scale back his ambition" from ruler of the galaxy.
• And though the Doctor's inclusion here is mostly flippant, we do at least get to see him being used as the "President" for a practical reason - that he's photonic so the aliens are actually able to perceive him, a sharp piece of writing that's quite muted in all the good-times shuffle.
• For the first time I can think of in Star Trek, we get an actual reference to people needing to go to the toilet. It's not really important, but it's there!
• I don't know why it's funny, but every time Voyager tries to clear the "subspace sand bar" and grinds to a halt it makes me smile.
• Kate Mulgrew is the star here, without a shadow of a doubt, and really gets to dial up her star presence to 11 (and beyond). She has so many great moments, but chief among her non-Arachnia ones is the way she laughingly asks Tom who's going to play Arachnia, tossing a glance over to Seven, only to twig that even Seven realizes it's going to be Janeway.
• But it's not like she doesn’t have the most enthusiastic of competition from Martin Reyner, returning to the role of Chaotica and giving a, mwah-ha, command performance as he uses his army of evil to attack the photonic life-forms.
• Janeway lamenting that she often has to do things herself for them to be done right, only for Chaotica to conclude that this is because of the incompetence of her underlings is similarly delightful.
• In line with all evil bad guys, Chaotica wouldn't kill his bride, "until after the ceremony!"
• Janeway has a perfect line in delivering eye-rolling disbelief as she delivers her cheesy melodramatic dialogue, and it's really good work from Mulgrew, treading the line between Janeway and Janeway-as-Arachnica. Her spider-ships would be proud!
• The "The end" caption on the visualizer followed by a question mark is just the most perfect evocation of those old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials. Because, as with Ming, can an enemy of Chaotica's might ever truly be stopped? Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! *dramatic strings*
And so there we have it. A charming, affectionately loving send-up of Star Trek's routes, delivered with an astonishing attention to detail, and with absolutely everyone in on the joke and just having a whale of a time. Chaotica will be back, because of course he will, and maybe then I'll do more of a historical analysis of the roots of science fiction and how they evolve on a continuing spectrum from the very simplest of action set-pieces to the absurd complexity of something like Sense8 or Orphan Black, and the new genre of hyper-sophisticated science fiction shows. But for now, just lie back, wallow in the sheer unbridled joy of "Bride Of Chaotica!" and have fun. It's... unimpeachable.
Say cheesy!
OK third time lucky. One of the things about writing reviews like this is that the reader, obviously, only gets to see the end result. So while everything looks natural and well placed on the page with my timelessly artful arguments (ahem) it doesn't really show what's gone on to get to that point. This is my third attempt to start writing a review of "Latent Image" after two false starts, and there's a bit of me that thinks this might be fairly representative of the episode as well, which takes a few fits and starts to get going but once it does it hums along quite well. But, while there's no denying "Latent Image" is a generally decent episode, it never quite seems to fulfil its promise either (which I have a feeling may also be true of this review, especially by the time you get to the closing paragraph). Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of good material here, and this is better in every single regard than "Nothing Human", the last episode to give the Doctor centre stage and engage in a fairly typical morality debate. But there's definitely a feeling of familiarity here, of something that's been done before, so let's take a little look at that and see if there's anything revealing about it.
Because that feeling of familiarity is not something that does the episode any real favours. It's not just that "Nothing Human" was only three episodes ago and so traipsing out another chance for the Doctor to go through his moral and ethical paces feels a little uninventive, even if this one is done substantially better. But the developments of the Doctor's personality is something that feels like it's been settled for some time now as well, and so to return to it here feels a little... peculiar, to say the least. It's not that this is a bad script, but it feels like it belong in, say, Season Three, maybe some time after something like "The Swarm" where this acts as the final capper on the Doctor's developing individuality. Now to be fair, you could take this as an acknowledgement that character progressions aren't linear and sometimes you slide back as well as moving forward and indeed the ongoing investment in character work done with Seven shows how successfully this can be done. But there's not really those kind of beats to this episode, because there is no backsliding - it just feels like it was produced somewhat out of time. Janeway's comments about the Doctor seem especially egregious in this regard - she's already confronted her prejudice over the fact that the origin of the Doctor's life is technological rather than biological, so for it to be brought up here again, without any surrounding justification, just feels like we're trailing over a debate that's already been won. And it's not like this isn't an important piece of character development for the Doctor, because of course it is, it's just that it feels like it's reaching a conclusion that's already been reached, which is that the Doctor is an individual and thus his rights as an individual should be respected. Which, fine. But there's also a slight problem here, and it's one the episode brings up then slightly swerves away from, which is a pity because it would have made quite a refreshing change on the more "normal" ethical debate we eventually end up with. And it's this. When the Doctor confronts Janeway she points out that when she chose to reprogram him, she did it for the good of the crew, and for the long-term welfare of the Doctor. The Doctor protests, and from this stems the ethical argument of whether Janeway has the right to take action. But the thing is - this is a Starfleet vessel, and neither the Doctor nor Janeway are civilians. When someone, anyone, joins up to serve in the armed forces (and while you can argue that Starfleet itself isn't exclusively military, it's clear from "Caretaker" that Voyager's primary missions are meant to be) they give up some of the liberties and freedoms that a civilian would have. Whether that is desirable or not is a separate question, but it does happen. So when Janeway says she reprogrammed the Doctor for the good of the ship and the crew, placing that ahead of his rights as an individual, there isn't really a lot of argument to be had. Yes a "third way" solution would be preferable, and indeed is eventually what the episode gets around to, but she had to make a judgement call for the welfare of the entire crew, and that's what she did. As a result, there just isn't a vast amount of ethics to debate here. Or to put it another way, while the ethical debates on the surface are perfectly fine, they feel hollow because the episode doesn’t quite seem to understand the implications of its own position.
That's another thing which makes the episode seem over-familiar, then - the cast having to gamely up the material. Both Picardo and Mulgrew are on fine form here, so there's really not much in the way of surprise when we discover that they're capable of it, but it still feels just a touch frustrating, because this falls just a few centimetres away from the finishing line of excellence. Picardo, in particular, seems to be paying really close attention to the material here, and modulates his performance to match, and in pairing him with Mulgrew the script wisely gives him someone he can really play off. Really, so many of the scenes here are a gift to an actor of Picardo's quality, but his final, lost scenes on the holodeck play out in a way we haven't quite seen with the Doctor before, so he gets a few moments where he can push the Doctor just that little bit further than usual. It's all solid character work (that we've seen before) in service of a perfectly decent ethical quandary (that we've seen before). The whole debate over who the Doctor saves and who he allows to die feels a bit peculiar as well. I mean beyond the obvious necessity of "regular cast member saved over anonymous redshirt" it just doesn't seem like that much to get worked up over. Not that it's not a difficult situation, and the Doctor does explicitly say that his program is damaged which presumably leads to this situation in the first place, but it seems like comparatively small fry. There should be more of an attempt to explain the conflict the Doctor feels either in terms of his emerging "soul" or because of the damage done to his program - to just have it sit there relatively unexplained undermines it and makes it seem more arbitrary than it needs to.
So look, anyway, I'm just rambling about the place here. "Latent Image" is fine, really it is, but under all the flash of ethics on the surface there's something relatively straightforward about the episode that means it never really elevates itself to something special. That feeling of familiarity I mentioned at the beginning doesn't really elucidate much of anything in the end, because all that's really there is a nagging sense that we've seen all this before. Because we have. The alien attack is incredibly perfunctory, even given that it's only meant to be there to get the story going (we don't even get a reason for the attack, which is especially shoddy). The Janeway/Seven scene, where Janeway is forced to face up to her doubts as to the nature of the Doctor, is something we've already visited, both with Seven and the Doctor, so it adds nothing much. This is meant to be a big emotional beat for the Doctor, finally facing the reality of his quest to be something more than his programming, and indeed it is. Again. And Picardo plays the hell out of it, no surprise. But Ok, let's give this episode the benefit of the doubt and say here, finally, beyond all question, the Doctor qualifies as an emergent life-form, and is clearly, unambiguously not just a hologram. He's something else. He's more. Good. Great. Message received and understood.
End transmission.
Stray Observations:
• Well, just the usual praise for Picardo and Mulgrew, who are great. Mulgrew seems rather re-energized after last week, actually, having not had a terrific amount to do this season.
• The Doctor's holo-imaging hobby actually having consequence, having been seen many times in the past, is an unexpectedly great way to use something that was clearly just developed to be a bit of an annoying habit. That's definitely something to this episode's benefit.
• Engisn Redshirt! Calling Redshit Engisn to the shuttlebay!
• While it's understandable that Kes isn't in the Season Three flashbacks that we get to see it would have been a nice touch if she had at least been referred to, along the lines of, "oh she'll join the party when she's finished in sickbay." Ah well.
• Anonymous mission, anonymous alien, anonymous ensign. See a pattern?
• Still that last scene is great, and it's a very unusual way to end an episode (Janeway's clearly been off the coffee if she fell asleep). And though things are back to normal by next week, it's really nice that they establish that this really is something that it takes time for the Doctor to get over, and we get to physically see that process in action. That's definitely another plus for this episode.
Season Five, Episode 12 - "Bride Of Chaotica!"
Guardians Of The Galaxy
One of the most sublimely perfect episodes in all of Star Trek, "Bride Of Chatotica!" is an absolute joy from its first moment to its final frame. Chances are you know that already, though, so that's not an especially insightful observation. Since everything with "Chaotica!" is so perfect, I think I'm going to take this opportunity to have this be the "Any Other Business" review of the season and just wallow in the pleasure of it, because although there's lots of potentially interesting stuff to explore about how this is Star Trek's way of showing it's roots and affectionately acknowledging where it came from, and the historiography of how Captain Proton relates to both the Flash Gordon serials its aping and Star Trek itself, and... but to be honest I just feel like having fun with this one. So:
Any Other Business:
• The very first thing that strikes about this episode, even before the first image, is the wonderful recreation of 30s/40s over-the-top action-serial music, and it is absolutely (sorry about this) note perfect. Thanks, David Bell!
• Proton's secretary has a scream that could score glass, in line with all "heroines" of the era.
• I have an inexpressible love for Satan's Robot, who is absolutely never not perfect when on-screen. Even the camp way it "looks around" when looking between two people in a conversation is done to perfection, or the way it mutters, "intruders" under its breath after being slapped and told to keep quiet.
• The cuts and wipes between "scenes" are similarly a perfect evocation of a bygone age (and also draw an implicit line between the roots of Star Trek and Star Wars, the latter of which uses the same style of wipes).
• The line Tom has about, "I've been studying how past generations view the future" is referring to a real thing, which is called retro-futurism and is exactly as he describes it - how the past view the future (and is distinct from something like steampunk, which is more about envisioning modern technology with a historical construction). Generally retro-futurism covers the period from about 1930 to about 1965ish (so until roughly when things moved into a post-modernist era), and in artistic terms tends towards modernism and art deco, and it is genuinely fascinating.
• The idea of "photonic life forms" is both really interesting and, once again, in line with Voyager's expansively ambitious use of holo-technology, although this is taking it in an entirely new direction. And though it's been pointed out before, it's really fascinating that they can't detect "our" life-forms as real.
• Chaotica himself is a masterful Ming The Merciless stand-in/send-up, and his lightning-covered costume is an absolute marvel (and links nicely with his "lightning shield").
• Poor Lonzac. Forever cast in his master's fiendish shadow!
• So, so many wonderful/terrible puns, from "things didn't work out as black and white as they imagined" (ho ho) to Arachnia's reference to Chaotica keeping her pheromones, "I didn't think you were the scent-imental type".
• The attention to detail in the set designs cannot be praised highly enough, even down to teeny tiny details like the intentional wobble of the console in Proton's rocket ship when Harry leans on it in frustration.
• Tuvok looks surprisingly comfortable striding about the Captain Proton set, and of course gets plenty of chances to be in black and white like his clear, obvious inspiration, Betty Davis. It’s a shame we don't get to see him in costume.
• Though speaking of "in costume", while Harry and Tom's consumes look great and appropriately period, absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, comes close to seeing Janeway in her Arachnia get-up.
• The Doctor as "President Of Earth" is an affectionate nod to his ego, especially as he says he had to "scale back his ambition" from ruler of the galaxy.
• And though the Doctor's inclusion here is mostly flippant, we do at least get to see him being used as the "President" for a practical reason - that he's photonic so the aliens are actually able to perceive him, a sharp piece of writing that's quite muted in all the good-times shuffle.
• For the first time I can think of in Star Trek, we get an actual reference to people needing to go to the toilet. It's not really important, but it's there!
• I don't know why it's funny, but every time Voyager tries to clear the "subspace sand bar" and grinds to a halt it makes me smile.
• Kate Mulgrew is the star here, without a shadow of a doubt, and really gets to dial up her star presence to 11 (and beyond). She has so many great moments, but chief among her non-Arachnia ones is the way she laughingly asks Tom who's going to play Arachnia, tossing a glance over to Seven, only to twig that even Seven realizes it's going to be Janeway.
• But it's not like she doesn’t have the most enthusiastic of competition from Martin Reyner, returning to the role of Chaotica and giving a, mwah-ha, command performance as he uses his army of evil to attack the photonic life-forms.
• Janeway lamenting that she often has to do things herself for them to be done right, only for Chaotica to conclude that this is because of the incompetence of her underlings is similarly delightful.
• In line with all evil bad guys, Chaotica wouldn't kill his bride, "until after the ceremony!"
• Janeway has a perfect line in delivering eye-rolling disbelief as she delivers her cheesy melodramatic dialogue, and it's really good work from Mulgrew, treading the line between Janeway and Janeway-as-Arachnica. Her spider-ships would be proud!
• The "The end" caption on the visualizer followed by a question mark is just the most perfect evocation of those old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials. Because, as with Ming, can an enemy of Chaotica's might ever truly be stopped? Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! *dramatic strings*
And so there we have it. A charming, affectionately loving send-up of Star Trek's routes, delivered with an astonishing attention to detail, and with absolutely everyone in on the joke and just having a whale of a time. Chaotica will be back, because of course he will, and maybe then I'll do more of a historical analysis of the roots of science fiction and how they evolve on a continuing spectrum from the very simplest of action set-pieces to the absurd complexity of something like Sense8 or Orphan Black, and the new genre of hyper-sophisticated science fiction shows. But for now, just lie back, wallow in the sheer unbridled joy of "Bride Of Chaotica!" and have fun. It's... unimpeachable.