posted
I was just not feeling this one too much, mostly because the A-plot was so hackneyed.
The C-plot was the funniest. The Cerritos is having to implode this moon before it falls on this planet, but the inhabitants of all the other moons are protesting because of how it would affect them. Captain Freeman manages to satisfy most of them via diplomacy, but this one guy just isn't having any of it. Turns out he and his wife are the only inhabitants of their moon. Upon finding this out, Freeman's done with this and hilariously gives the order to implode the moon.
The B-plot had Rutherford and Tendi jealous of all the cool stuff the Vancouver had and trying to get their hands on some of it, only to find themselves facing an involuntary transfer to the Vancouver. Not bad, but not great either.
Like I said earlier, the A-plot was hackneyed. The "nerdy guy has cool girlfriend so there MUST be something wrong with her" plot. And poor Boimler gets left all alone once the parasite is removed and Mariner makes friends with the (ex-?)girlfriend.
We get a LOT of reference to past Trek series in this one, including a very cool flashback scene with Mariner in the uniform type seen in the later TNG movies and later DS9. In that same scene, Mariner references Lore and the events of "Descent". Picard spends a whole season dealing with Soong-type androids, and Lore doesn't get brought up ONCE. It takes Lower Decks to remember he exists. (What ever DID happen to Lore anyway?)
And, of course, we get Tendi paired with Rutherford AGAIN and Boimler paired with Mariner AGAIN. Mix it up, people!
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
Lore was taken apart, remember?
I agree with your plot ratings. I, too, am tired of the pairings. The constant references are awful, too. It's like "gotta make sure they know it's Star Trek & we know our history!"
Quito is an Olympic, apparently.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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posted
Taken as a whole, the fate of Lore becomes a gaping hole in the PIC premise. Sure he was deactivated & dismantled (being summarily deprived of the same rights his brother had fought for, by the way). But he could thus be reassembled and reactivated, you’re telling me someone as obsessed as Maddox wouldn’t do that? It’s also never made clear whether B4 was similarly stored because his simpler design caused him to permanently malfunction; or if the greater complexity of Data’s memory engrams caused the failure; or if he was just shut down because androids were now verboten.
PIC is more and more of a shitshow the more I think of it, really. I can’t believe Picard or Riker or Troi - or LaForge or Crusher or Worf - would let Thad Riker die just for want of a fucking positronic brain.
posted
Yeah, Lee pretty much stated my problem with not mentioning Lore at all. Lore was the most advanced Soong-type android once Data went kablooie. I highly doubt somebody just shoved him away in a warehouse Ark of the Covenant style to be forgotten.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
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posted
The Lore/Borg incident happened in 2369 but the Quito crew talked about it like it happened a few weeks ago while wearing uniforms introduced in 2373.
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posted
Also weird having the Vancouver be seen as this bright shiny new ship when it has a registry 5,000 lower than the Cerritos, so is not just older, but potentially up to five years older (based on past observations of how registries advance).
I’m wondering whether they meant it to have a 80xxx registry, Galaxy-style saucer aside it has some pretty advances design features, notably around the deflector.
posted
Maybe the Vancouver received some sort of tech upgrade?
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
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posted
Registries seem all over the place, what with the Cerritos being 75XXX and her sister ship the Merced being 87XXX, and what’s implied to be a brand new ship (the Vancouver) has a registry of 70XXX.
At least we’re not seeing new ships with registries of 3XXXX or whatnot. That would really annoy me.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
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posted
I was very surprised that I liked Captain Freeman this week. She was persistently diplomatic, and her reaction when she found out she was being stonewalled by a “civilization” of two was perfect.
I ended up being confused by the resolution to the A-plot. So that parasite was what got Boimler his girlfriend? How did the parasite not affect anyone else around him? Why did no one suggest he go to Sickbay to check for side effects, much less for actually removing the parasite to begin with? (I know, Rule of Funny...)
I find it interesting that the Cerritos is considered to be “falling apart” when it’s probably about 10-15 years old at the most. (Well, getting half-dissolved by alien proto-terraforming goop probably didn't help.) I guess it’s more evidence at how under-recognized B’Elanna Torres was for keeping Voyager running all those years?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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quote:It’s a California-class ship, which has always existed in Starfleet – [this is] what we’re saying – that they’re the utility support ships. In the California-class [line], there are three types of hull painting: there’s blue, red, and yellow.
If we don't take this literally we could assume that the USS California was in the NCC-1xxxx or NCC-2xxxx range and ships of the class are still produced in the 2380s.
Kind of like the Mirandas with registries ranging from NCC-1864 (Reliant) to NCC-32591 (Sitak) or the Excelsiors NCC-2000 to NCC-44278 (Archer).
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posted
I can see the logic in the California-class being this rather uninteresting second-tier utility vessel, especially being similarly configured to the Miranda which it was presumably conceived to replace. But it’s hard to overlook that we never once saw any of them previously. You can hand-wave that away by saying the known registries imply it’s still a relatively new replacement - but it almost implies that maybe (along with aging Excelsiors) the Mirandas were kept operating perhaps far longer than they should have been. Maybe the heavy losses of both in the Dominion War finally prompted a replacement project...
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: I find it interesting that the Cerritos is considered to be “falling apart” when it’s probably about 10-15 years old at the most. (Well, getting half-dissolved by alien proto-terraforming goop probably didn't help.) I guess it’s more evidence at how under-recognized B’Elanna Torres was for keeping Voyager running all those years?
I always wish Voyager got banged up looking over time like Galactica did throughout the series.
Yeah, I don't get how the Cerritos is described as being an old jalopy considering it's high registry number. It would have been built around the same time as the Sao Paulo. It can't be that old. Hell the real life USS Nimitz is 45 years old and still in service.
-------------------- I'm slightly annoyed at Hobbes' rather rude decision to be much more attractive than me though. That's just rude. - PsyLiam, Oct 27, 2005.
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posted
TrekCore just pointed out that because Lt. Brimson served on the Vancouver one could reasonably say that Boimler had a girlfriend who lived in Canada.
*rimshot*
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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