View Single Post
  #13  
Old 02-17-2020, 11:58 PM
Nate the Great's Avatar
Nate the Great Nate the Great is offline
You just activated his Trek card
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 4,859
Default

I've been considering how to make this thread different from the inevitable Voyager retrospective in 2025. Therefore, I've decided on a few ground rules:


* No Treknobabble nits except where necessary to fix the main plot of the episode.

* No references to other series except where specifically mentioned in the Voyager episode. i.e. in "Death Wish" I can bring up Q's previous relationship with humanity, in "Prototype" I can talk about Data, in "False Profits" I can talk about "The Price", etc.
* No fixing individual lines. I'll be tweaking motivations here, not the actual lines. I may be coming back to this thread during the Voyager retrospective to build on my earlier comments.
* No gushing over particular lines or moments. That kind of thing can wait for the retrospective.



"Caretaker"


* Janeway should've done the necessary research on Tom to not bring up his father in the first conversation. She could've done this at a later point, at the same time that we cover Tom's relationship with his father. Counterpoint their relationships, goals, outlooks on life, etc.

* If the idea was to introduce the original Voyager crew to make it more poignant when they die, more work was needed to establish them. And making fun of Paris all the time wasn't the way to do it. Only one person had to clash with him besides Harry, most likely the original first officer.
* Now's not the time to bring up the bio-neural gel packs. Save it for a later episode when they're actually important. We need the screentime to establish the series premise! Treknology changes (except the EMH of course) can wait until later, along with explaining the moving nacelles if it is supposed to prevent "Force of Nature"-style damage.
* I'm okay with Janeway having a background as a science officer a la Mosaic, but poking around engineering is too much. In fact, this general idea of "all of the senior members of each department got killed, that's why we need the Maquis" is too much. Furthermore, we already have too much to cover in this pilot, all we need is a random voice over the comm saying that they're doing their best!
* The idea that every single member of the medical staff was in Sickbay simultaneously is absurd. I get why we need to kill the CO, but that doesn't mean there aren't nurses. They're out of their depth, being junior officers, so we still need the EMH, but give him some help!
* The whole farm illusion thing is a waste of time that could've been better spent elsewhere. I would almost prefer a copy of Emissary where each person sees a different thing, and Caretaker is in a different role in each. It would be good for character development and you'd only need a short time for each.

* I'll deal with the desert planet/water is more valuable than gold thing in the retrospective. Suffice to say, it's stupid. They could pay Neelix in another way. Just offering to fix his ship a la "Outrageous Okona" would be enough.

* The Maquis ship (the Val Jean) remaining unnamed is stupid. In fact, I hate it in general when enemy ships are unnamed. When we face the Romulans, do you think they refer to us as "the Starfleet ship"? I doubt it.
* The basic plot is okay, I just wish it could've been fleshed out a bit.
* I've said it before, I'll say it again: destroying the Array was necessary. Janeway feels no guilt, nobody blames her.
__________________
mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate.
Zeke: It comes nateurally to him.

mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea.

Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity.

Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further.
Reply With Quote