Star Trek: Voyager Reviews FF

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.

I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

There are several episodes in VOY that involve the question of whether or not holograms are alive, and/or feature conflict between holograms and organic beings. I’m going to ignore that part of VOY, it’s a bit too philosophical, and comparing the maltreatment of holograms to the maltreatment of, for example, Black people, seems stupid. Although I kind of make an exception for The Doctor (it’s impossible to be a fan of ST and not do that) I lean towards saying that holograms are not life forms, but I don’t feel like going into it.

”Live Fast And Prosper” See this for a plot summary.

A mostly non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

There is one political aspect. Janeway does something which I’d say is in a gray area between interrogation without torture and on the other side, WITH torture. She tries to scare one of the impostors by threatening to turn her over to those she cheated, and then exaggerates how horrible their criminal justice system is (esp. the prisons). After the interrogation session she indicates that she’s pretty far from going through with the threat.

That sort of interrogation technique seems okay to me. It’s different from, for example, something I read about that happened in the early 1970s in N. Ireland. Republican detainees were blindfolded (or hooded) and put on helicopters that then took off. Shortly after reaching some high altitude, the helicopter returned to just 1-3 feet above the ground and the detainee was pushed out, thinking they were much higher in the air. That’s torture, and what Janeway did seems different.

“Muse” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Fury” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Lifeline” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.