Star Trek: Voyager Reviews S

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.

“Retrospect” See this for a plot summary.

One way to look at this episode is that it could almost be referred to by people accused of rape. But that probably isn’t the right way to look at it. In the episode it’s not actually rape, although the dialogue could confuse you about that. And there are many elements that undermine the idea that it illustrates a case of false rape allegations. For one thing, it DOES make sense that Seven was confusing her treatment by the Borg with what happened in the episode. And The Doctor was an amateur psychologist. In general, it doesn’t do what I suggested at the beginning, although considering that possibility is unavoidable.

I give it three stars out of five.

“The Killing Game” parts 1 and 2 See this and this for a plot summary.

You’d think this would be my favorite two-parter- Star Trek and WWII (Europe!) combined. But, like all VOY bad guys except for the Borg and Species 8472, I’m not a big fan of the Hirogen. So I give this two-parter only four stars out of five.

“Vis a Vis” See this for a plot summary.

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