{"id":5611,"date":"2016-06-01T13:00:01","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=5611"},"modified":"2016-05-20T15:09:09","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:09:09","slug":"mark-watches-voyager-s02e03-projections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2016\/06\/mark-watches-voyager-s02e03-projections\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Voyager’: S02E03 – Projections"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the third episode of the second season of\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>, THIS IS ALSO COOL AS HELL. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For unreality\/manipulations of reality.<\/b><\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a point towards the final act of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Projections\u00e2\u20ac\u009d where the tension fizzles out a bit. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s understandable; the premise for this episode is so ambitious and lofty that any possible conclusion was going to be challenging to pull off. And given the episodic nature of the show, there was another restriction placed on the story: somehow, The Doctor had to be okay.<\/p>\n

Which is fair! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that the Doctor is not removed from the show, HE IS GREAT, MORE OF THE DOCTOR. Yet the experience provided to us by\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is an existential crisis, one that seems\u00c2\u00a0very<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0real. And there was a definite point where I wondered if Barclay was telling the truth and this entire episode took place on the Jupiter Station, and WHAT A SATISFYING TWIST THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN. Of course, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of doubt that the Brannon Braga\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s script relies on.\u00c2\u00a0Is<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0this all possible? And every time I felt certain about a specific direction the story was headed, doubt would crop back up again, and the tension would get to me.<\/p>\n

In hindsight, this really is a bold episode. The first five minutes of it makes it seem like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something else, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all! I went into this thinking that it was going to be a story about a disaster scenario. How would B\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Elanna, Janeway, Neelix and the Doctor save the ship and get back all their kidnapped crew? WHO CARES, BECAUSE THE DOCTOR IS\u00c2\u00a0BLEEDING<\/i>. Once that scene hits, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Projections\u00e2\u20ac\u009d stops being a rescue mission, and it morphs into a complex and unnerving examination of the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s identity. If the Doctor is suddenly human, what does that mean? Does it change his purpose or his mission? Does he act differently himself? Yet even those questions are eclipsed by an even weirder phenomenon: the computer insists that the Doctor was\u00c2\u00a0never<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0a hologram, that no hologram ever existed on\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>, and that he is actually Louis Zimmerman, the scientist who created the Doctor.<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something that I was ready to believe right off the bat. And neither was the Doctor! He has memories! He is a hologram on the\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0starship! This can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0all<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0have been part of a holographic simulation. And as I mentioned before, the nature of how stories work on\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0meant that I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready to accept this hypothesis either. The show had to prove it to me that the Doctor was actually Louis before I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d believe it.<\/p>\n

SO THEN THEY DID. Through the use of Barclay (!!!!! I NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS EXPECTED TO SEE HIM ON\u00c2\u00a0VOYAGER<\/i>), we are shown definitively that the Doctor is not the Doctor, nor is he a holograph. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a scientist who has been stuck inside a simulation due to radiation poisoning. And while every cell in my body was telling me that this was impossible, how could I deny what I was seeing? Even further, the choice to use Barclay was\u00c2\u00a0brilliant<\/i>. See, I kept wondering if some alien force had invaded\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0and was trying to trick the Doctor into destroying the ship through this illusion. But why on Earth would they appear as\u00c2\u00a0Barclay<\/i>, a character that none of the\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0characters had ever met? Thus, something else had to be the cause of all of this.<\/p>\n

This is the point where \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Projections\u00e2\u20ac\u009d begins to feel a bit too tiresome, unfortunately. The double ending, coupled with a whole lot of info-dumping to help the audience understand the complicated situation, makes the story drag. Like, I get that the show has to communicate to us\u00c2\u00a0how<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0the Doctor is able to experience this entire thing, but a ton of information is thrust our way in a very short span of time. It made the story feel suddenly less emotional and more technical, which is a misstep for me. The Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s existential crisis was so personal, and the technobabble pulled me right out of it.<\/p>\n

But it certainly doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ruin the episode for me at all. This was an EXTREMELY fun thing to watch, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m rather pleased with how season two has started.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Projections\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><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>.
\n– I\u00c2\u00a0will be at numerous conventions in 2016! Check 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 will be Death Note<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/em>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\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":"