Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Voyager 4x10 "Random Thoughts"

Please take note: It is apparently possible to get a bad episode out of B'Elanna Torres.

Unlike "Day of Honor" earlier in the season, an attempt to draw a more generic episode out of Torres and her continuing efforts to find peace with herself doesn't work, especially when you draw anything significant for Torres herself from the story, and instead make it more about Tuvok's investigation. I love Tuvok, but he's not always compelling as a lead character, being the typical dispassionate Vulcan, which does not lead to a compelling (read: charismatic) detective, which is probably why the show stopped trying to do episodes like this with him. They just plain didn't work.

Unfortunately, that also meant that Tuvok started receding further and further into the background, much like Chakotay, with the wrong lessons being learned, or lessons being misconstrued. Conversely, it was fortunate that they didn't afflict Torres with more material like this. It took a while, and not until the next season, but they got this character back on track.

But in the meantime, look away. This one's not worth your time, unless you want to see a bunch of missteps. With Voyager, a Star Trek series some fans said were full of them, this might at least be worth examining to see where real problems developed.

Franchise * Series * Essential * Character

Memory Alpha summary.

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