In the twenty-second episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>, what the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK,\u00c2\u00a0VOYAGER<\/i>. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re intrigued, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of death, death of a child.<\/b><\/p>\n
I THOUGHT THIS WAS GOING TO BE FUNNY.\u00c2\u00a0I WANTED A FUNNY EPISODE<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Look, I gotta hand it to\u00c2\u00a0Voyager.\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect them to take this as far as they did. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bold choice for the Doctor, but I appreciate the commitment to the premise. If the Doctor wanted to understand what it meant to be part of a family? What would that entail?<\/p>\n
Strife, conflict, and DEATH.<\/p>\n
Look, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s understandable that I expected this to be a lighter episode. The initial sequences that we got of the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life with his holographic family were hilarious. Initially, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like some horrible\u00c2\u00a0Stepford Wives<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0parody. Each member of the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family is designed to provide the maximum amount of support and happiness, and there is a distinct lack of\u00c2\u00a0any<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0conflict. Now, it made a lot of sense to me that the Doctor wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even consider this; a family was a fantasy to him, so he created a fantasy. What other context did he have for one? Plus, his intention was pure: he wanted to be a good father, and thus, he created a family that allowed him to utilize his best qualities. He could mentor his children as they became genius students. His wife lectured at a university. Everyone was super smart and nice and, if I may be so bold, stroked the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ego in just the right way.<\/p>\n
Which makes me wonder: WHAT WAS B\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ELANNA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S HOME LIFE LIKE. I REALLY WANT TO KNOW. She was\u00c2\u00a0furious<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0that the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family was so saccharine and sweet, and when she helped re-program it to be more realistic? CHAOS. BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL CHAOS. That whole sequence was one of the funniest things that\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0has ever done. Shrieking children! Disobedient, Klingon-punk sons! Irresponsible daughters! IT WAS SO PERFECT, an incredible way to demonstrate the unpredictability of family life, which destroyed the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notion that he could properly prepare in a ay to eliminate conflict. As Tom later put it, the Doctor viewed his family as a patient to be treated.<\/p>\n
Of course, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not how families work. It took me until it was spelled out to understand that Tom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role here was to provide another real-world parallel to what the Doctor was experiencing. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0control<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0people, or at least you shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try to do so. Humans are complicated and layered and unpredictable by nature. The problem is that the Doctor tried to impose a rigid organizational framework to the life of his family, all without consulting them, and it completely backfired. Yet even then? He still got to experience the wonder of forgiveness, love, and understanding.<\/p>\n
AND THEN EVERYTHING TURNS TO DUST AND THIS SHOW TAKES A NOSEDIVE INTO TRAGEDY. I get the point of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Real Life,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d though, because the Doctor\u00c2\u00a0had<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to learn that he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just turn life off once it got challenging. I still never thought that the writers would actually kill the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter off, and yes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hologram. Yes, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the experience any less real, either. I knew the whole thing was part of the holodeck, and it still stung. HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO THE DOCTOR? IT WAS HIS FIRST FAMILY.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d life is often a messy, depressing affair. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen that on\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>, too, and as much tragedy as these people have faced, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s joy, too. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fluctuating thing, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll paraphrase Tom Paris again. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth it in the end because the experience itself brought the\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0crew closer together, just like the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife and son are closer because of tragedy. Humans often bond through pain, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lesson the Doctor needed to learn.<\/p>\n
STILL DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T EXPECT HOW SAD THIS WOULD BE, THOUGH.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Real Life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded\u00c2\u00a0here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – I am now on Patreon<\/a>! There are various levels of support, from $1 up to whatever you want! You’ll get to read a private blog, extra reviews, and other such rewards. I POST A LOT OF CUTE PHOTOS, OKAY. Think of it like a private Tumblr blog that only SPECIAL PEOPLE get to read.<\/b> In the twenty-second episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Voyager, what the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK,\u00c2\u00a0VOYAGER. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re intrigued, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[614,656],"tags":[615],"class_list":["post-5887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek","category-voyager","tag-mark-watches-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– I have updated my list of conventions and events for the remainder of the year and much of next year.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches have been announced here.<\/a>
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"