Star Trek: Voyager Reviews Y

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.

Unfortunately I am skipping 4 episodes which are on a DVD that doesn’t work. Hopefully soon the video store will have it fixed or replaced soon. Fortunately, the odds of those episodes containing something that I need in order to understand episodes after those four is very low.

“Juggernaut” See this for a plot summary.

Another environmental episode. There’s also an element of environmental racism.

I give it three stars out of five.

“Someone to Watch Over me” See this for a plot summary.

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

“11:59” See this for a plot summary.

This is kind of a political episode. It touches on big capital pressuring small-business to sell so big business can build something new. If the small business(es) involved all agree to sell and the government doesn’t pressure them, that seems like most of the time it’s fine (exceptions would include historical structures (that was recently a really big deal in Dublin with a building used by republicans during the Easter Rising)).

An interesting, unique ST episode but I don’t like it much and am almost tempted to give just one star, but I’ll give it two (out of five).

“Relativity” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode, but one of my favorites. I give it four stars out of five.