In the twenty-first episode of the second season of\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>.<\/p>\n
You know, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty fine with the idea that\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0is going to be the show that goes for the weird and lives on the fringe of it. Yes, that means I have to accept that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Threshold\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a part of that weirdness, but hey, every episode of this show can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be tolerable! (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m jesting, but oh my god, I thought about that episode again, and I really can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deal with it.) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Deadlock\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is certainly a bizarre one, one that highlights the willingness of\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to give us high-concept science fiction stories.<\/p>\n
Because seriously, Harry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s final scene in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Deadlock\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is an appropriate reaction to all of this. I know that these are the same characters and that in the grand scope of things, they diverged for only the briefest of moments. But that span of a few hours still matters, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a quiet and unnerving reality to what happened here. The\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0crew split and occupied the same space as another version of themselves. Now, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely not the first time we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen this general concept on a\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0show, and yet? This still feels so\u00c2\u00a0new<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to me. Why is that?<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s partially because of the relentless nature of the first act of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Deadlock.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL. Who thought this was okay? Look, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think any of this would stick, and it\u00c2\u00a0still<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make me feel any better. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly enjoy watching\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0get blasted to pieces, nor did I enjoy knowing that Ensign Wildman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s newly-born child died. NOR DID I LOVE WATCHING HARRY GET SUCKED OUT OF A HULL BREECH AND INTO SPACE. But now I understand why the show went so far in the first third of the episode. By doing so, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be shocked by the image of the clean, undamaged\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0that snaps onto our screen. Thus, the two realities are clear, as are the pulses that destroyed so much of the\u00c2\u00a0other<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0ship.<\/p>\n
I appreciated that there was an obvious visual difference between the two\u00c2\u00a0Voyager\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>ships so that I could identify the crew on sight. But y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just be real with ourselves. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Deadlock\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is so terribly good because of motherfuckin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Kathryn Janeway. THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THIS. My god, what a horrifying moral choice she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dealt with here, and the creepy part is that\u00c2\u00a0it<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same person who decides to kill off LITERALLY EVERYONE.\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>Again, I did not expect a\u00c2\u00a0Farscape<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0turn of events here. At some point, the\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0crew would either have to be rejoined with themselves or one crew would have to be eliminated. How could you have both at the same time?<\/p>\n
Thus, when the first attempt at rejoining fails miserably, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Deadlock\u00e2\u20ac\u009d felt hopeless. If the two ships couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be made one, then\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what the hell was Janeway supposed to do? SHE CROSSES INTO THE OTHER REALITY TO ARGUE WITH HERSELF. Okay, maybe \u00e2\u20ac\u0153argue\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a strong word, but y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, what a delight this whole experience was. See, you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore that Janeway beat herself at her own game, and I can see why that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so haunting to the surviving Janeway. Once the Vidiians go after the undamaged\u00c2\u00a0Voyager<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0and the crew is unable to hold them off, Janeway knows she has a single chance to save the other ship and take out the Vidiians at the same time.<\/p>\n
Does that make her death and the death of EVERYONE on that ship (minus Harry and the Wildman baby) less disturbing? No, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same decision the surviving Janeway would have made anyway, because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same person. (I swear, my head hurts the more I think about this.) Thus, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Deadlock\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is both a disaster episode and a chance to examine what kind of leader Janeway is. She demonstrates her willingness to make a strategic sacrifice to save others. Granted, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same people she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s killing off, and\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 my gods, my head hurts again.<\/p>\n
But damn, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. This was great. INCREDIBLY GREAT.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Deadlock\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here 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.<\/b> In the twenty-first episode of the second season of\u00c2\u00a0Voyager, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS. 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-5723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek","category-voyager","tag-mark-watches-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\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 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":"