dwanuga

I remember a lot of people suggesting that Geordie was a complete creep in this episode, and always dismissed it as hypersensitivity, but after watching the episode again, they're right. Geordie departs from his usual likeability in this episode to be completely inappropriate with Dr. Brahms.

The issue stems from a hologram of Dr. Brahms created in a previous episode. Geordie was attempting to make modifications to the engines, and asked the computer to create a hologram of the woman who designed the engines as a means of simulating working with an actual person. When he requests that the computer add a personality based on available data about Dr. Brahms to the hologram, he starts to develop a romantic interest in the created personality. This creates a relatively innocent origin for what would otherwise be a super creepy holographic creation.

This episode builds on that, but instead of Geordie approaching the situation reasonably, his interest is turned up to eleven and he almost immediately treats Dr. Brahms with an unprofessional familiarity, and it's revealed that he has spent time researching more about her. He invites her back to his quarters for a professional discussion of their work, with no indication that his true intent is a romantic evening. He's then shown setting mood lighting and trying to find the perfect music. Brahms handles his advances extremely politely and informs him that she's married. The arc reaches its climax when Brahms discovers the hologram of herself reciting the creepiest line of dialogue from the previous episode. She confronts Geordie and he responds by yelling at her. He claims that all he did was offer her friendship (which is inaccurate), and she in response was cold and harsh (which is a huge exaggeration). They manage to work together and their story ends with Brahms apologizing to Geordie for overreacting. Geordie never apologizes for the hologram, or his obsessive interest in Dr. Brahms, or his unprofessional behavior toward her. This episode is devastating to an otherwise beloved character. Geordie went from an engineer that could solve any problem to a creep that can't treat women with even the most basic respect.

Also there's a space baby or something...

This episode falls into the same trap as many other episodes of Star Trek, Star Trek is not a show about lawyers. The premise of this episode is certainly fun, the acting is great, and the writing outside of the courtroom is solid. The entire arbitration sequence can be entirely dismissed with the application of even the smallest amount of logic, but that would make for a very short episode. Had the entire episode simply been built around a reasonable discussion instead of bringing the law into it, it could have been redeemed, but Trek ventures where it doesn't belong again and shows Data breaking away from basic logic in order to perpetuate the story.

Kes left the crew of the Voyager as a friend and ally of the crew. She had grown a great deal in the few years she spent on board the ship, and as her character arc appeared to be complete, she departed with the implication that she would move on to her own story. Rather than taking the opportunity to build on the vague foreshadowing of the great things Kes would do, this episode instead reduces Kes back to a infantile character with no self awareness. The entire episode hinges on Kes, who had previously been exceptionally empathetic and understanding, regretting her decision to leave Voyager and blaming its crew for her isolation. This obsession leads her to attempt time travel to return her former self to Ocampa, which is possibly a reasonable conclusion; however, this conclusion is accompanied by a plan to sacrifice the entire Voyager crew to the Vidians.

So Kes, a character whose hallmark was caring and empathetic interactions with her crewmates, returns to the Voyager in order to completely undo all of the growth that she experienced during her tenure with Voyager and subject the crew that had become her adoptive family to a horrific fate at the hands of the Vidians. It is completely out of character for her, and absolutely devastating to anyone who appreciated the character prior to this episode.

The premise of the anime immediately makes it seem nonsensical. In this story, all pantheons of gods really do exist (alongside each other) and they have decided to exterminate humanity because they no longer believe humans deserve life. Ignoring the hypocrisy of justifying genocide by citing humanity's history of violent conflict, there's no real benefit to destroying humanity. Essentially the gods are killing all humans to prevent them from killing each other. Ignoring all the issues with the premise, the series still had potential. It could have been very entertaining to watch the absurd combat between humanity's greatest heroes and the gods of various polytheistic religions. If the anime was developed with self-awareness and recognition of its own absurdity, it could have been great, but that did not happen. Instead, every episode is framed as an intense emotional drama.

The show's pacing undermines any investment in events. The character's backstories don't mesh together well (which would be expected of characters pulled from so many different sources), so any connection to the characters from their origin is destroyed, and a new connection isn't forged in the brief exposure to their "new" story.

Full episodes can pass only showing a single attack that didn't even land, so the potential redemption of entertaining combat is foregone.

The only redeeming quality I can find is the show's sense of humor, but the series is certainly not a comedy, so even that doesn't make up for much.

The primary focus of this episode is the discussion of the nature of command in intense situations, an experience that few can relate to, but many would be curious about. Worf is required to defend himself in an extradition hearing related to the decisions he made in a combat situation with Klingon Birds of Prey. Naturally, the high stakes nature of the hearing and the investigation of what it truly takes to lead draws the audience in. With that immediate hook, I had high hopes for the episode, but as with many episodes of television set in a trial environment, reality and story-telling clash hard. The trial is utterly unbelievable with irrelevant testimony, hypocrisy, unacceptable conduct, and a presiding judge which seems to tolerate all forms of nonsense over the course of the hearing. The trial culminates with Cpt. Sisko delivering an impassioned speech is his odd manner that combines a loud delivery with odd rhythm and pregnant pauses; distracting from the message. The episode has potential and ultimately it tells a good story, but realism (I probably shouldn't be complaining about a lack of realism in Star Trek) is cast aside.

The primary issue investigated in this episode is what separates life from machine, and if there is ever a point at which the two become indistinguishable from each other. At it's core, it is a very powerful and thought provoking discussion; however, the presentation of this discussion is infuriating in this episode.

Lt. Commander Data is initially described as a possession of Star Fleet and, as a result, lacks the ability to make choices to determine the course of his own existence; choices like resigning from Star Fleet. Captain Piccard is responsible for defending Data against this claim, but the inherent flaws in this claim are never addressed. Data was found on a distant planet after being created by Dr. Sung. He was allowed to enroll in Star Fleet Academy. He was required to undergo all of the same training and procedures as every other Star Fleet officer, and was treated much the same as other officers prior to this episode. He is explicitly compared to the computer of the Enterprise as a piece of property belonging to Star Fleet despite the fact that the two have never been treated the same prior to this episode. In fact, Data has been treated exactly the same as other humanoid officers within Star Fleet. He has been awarded medals for exemplary behavior, reprimanded for actions that jeopardize relations with other species, and expected to learn and grow as he experiences new, unfamiliar events, but suddenly, after serving in Star Fleet for years, he is now property. This is the infuriating aspect of this episode. This is a tremendously engaging and intriguing area of discussion, but to begin the episode with such overwhelming hypocrisy and flawed logic is tremendously disappointing. Ultimately, the episode concludes with the recognition of Star Fleet's inability to conclude authoritatively on Data's "humanity" which does redeem the episode a good deal, but it is not sufficient to remedy the failings of the first act.