I am surprised at how quickly Voyager has taken hold with me.
Despite all the reservations I so carefully outlined in my previous entry, I found myself engrossed with the show as I watched episodes three and four over consecutive nights.
Kate Mulgrew is still a bit stiff (and way too energetic) in the role of Captain Janeway and the Paris character continues to ruin every scene in which he appears but the show has charm and at least tries to maintain a level of intelligence in its plots, characters and themes.
I don't get why both episode three ("Parallax") and episode four ("Time and Again") deal with such similar basic plots -- time gets distorted and Voyager has to find a way to change the past to save the future, or change the future to save the past, or whatever -- but there are still some nice moments in each show.
In "Parallax", the tensions between the Maquis crew and the original Star Fleet folk boil up as Torres competes with a Star Fleet engineer to replace the deceased Chief Engineer. Janeway shows her own prejudices while Chakotay displays his wisdom and the tensions are soon resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
The episode also features an extended, intelligent and strongly confrontational scene between two female characters (Janeway and Torres) that presents them as professional, powerful individuals. It's the kind of positive presentation of women that would mark the early years of Voyager especially as special on network television.
"Time and Again" is more action adventure but the writers don't shy away from putting the captain into the line of fire, and to permit her to be the action hero, "despite" the fact that she is a woman. Okay, the plot doesn't make much sense but Janeway comes across as a powerful, physically capable person who is cool under fire.
Things have started off pretty well.
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