|
COURSE
OBLIVION
Now I'm one of these people who watches Trek purely for the escapism, I rarely look too closely at the moral being told and whether an episode is politically correct and I think there has only been one film which has left a deep impact on me until this episode.
As I've said many times I don't read spoilers so I thought the opening scenes of Tom and B'Elanna's wedding were on the holodeck and I kept expecting B'Elanna to walk in and ask Tom what the hell was going on. I knew something wasn't quite right because Tom had the rank of Lieutenant and in Janeway Log she talks about a child being born. I kept thinking alternate universes or hallucinations so that when Tuvok and Chakotay dropped the bombshell I was taken completely unawares. Unfortunately it was at this point that the episode started go slightly downhill.
Some good points about the first part of this episode were the scenes between B'Elanna and Tom (I normally don't like this relationship but I felt it was handled well this week). Enjoyed the wedding scene, the vows they exchanged were simple but quite touching without being too sickly sweet. Also liked the sickbay scene where B'Elanna dies, thought McNeil actually played this with feeling.
I didn't like the way Janeway put the crew at risk by stubbornly insisting that they make it back to the Alpha Quadrant. I was pleased that at least this Chakotay had the guts to stand up to her, it's just a shame that he died straight after doing it, but at least it shocked her into doing the right thing even though it was at this point I felt she gave up. I liked the scene on the bridge where she tells the bridge crew that Chakotay has died I think Kate played it with the right amount of emotion, we haven't seen her get this close to tears since the scene with Kes in the 'Gift'.
This episode had a lot of good emotional scenes in it but the thing that spoiled it for me and which has prevented me replaying it many times (despite the fact there were many good Janeway scenes) is the ending. Why couldn't they at least have let the capsule with all their personnel logs in it survive? It left me with a sense of desolation and set me thinking negative thoughts such as, is there no point to our existence and will we leave nothing behind for people to remember us by. This episode had so much potential but they really messed it up.
|
|
