On season 7 of Voyager
Mar. 29th, 2015 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly(Gotta do something when folding clothes or otherwise taking on a tedious task.)
You know, the best thing you can say about Voyager is that it is consistent. TNG, for all that it's beloved by the fanboys, has more than its fair share of goofiness. DS9 can be dark. I never did like TOS, and Enterprise? Completely eaten by some stupid plots.
But Voyager, despite having some inconsistent writing and characterization, is a mostly consistent watching experience. You know going in what you're gonna get, like ordering off the dollar menu at McDonald's. 45 minutes of more or less enjoyable TV that doesn't make you think too hard and doesn't make you throw something at the wall either. There are a couple of highlights, and a couple of really awful low points, and mostly it's just... middling.
Anyway, now we're at the episode where Seven's implant is malfunctioning, and that one always bugs me. They ship off three (or four, if you remember the baby) of the Borg children, and I can kinda see why they might want to have the boys raised by their own people, but here's my thoughts on this:
1. As this episode proves, former Borg have special medical needs. Are these people capable of dealing with those? Voyager's doctor is something of a self-taught expert, and given how rare ex-Borg seem to be, is anybody going to have that knowledge on this planet?
2. These kids are going to be raised with the twins' "people", not with their "family", which would suggest that their family is dead. Well, that makes sense. Is it really worth taking them away from the family they've spent a year with so they can live in some alien foster care? It seems probable that at least some of those people might hate the Borg, and resent the presence of former Borg among them, even children. Voyager might be an emotionally safer atmosphere for them, given that there are fewer people and they all know the kids.
3. The last time they tried to pass a kid off to his people, those people turned out to have no compunction whatsoever about using him as bait. Not that I blame them, exactly, but exactly how thoroughly did they vet these folks?
4. I know Voyager goes home soon, but they didn't know that yet. They really need to start popping out more babies, taking on more orphans if they expect to have anybody crewing the ship by the time they reach Earth again. At this point they're still (as far as they know) a good 30 - 40 years from Earth.
Yes, I grasp that the writers figured that 3 out of 4 of the ex-Borg children (not counting the baby which everybody forgot) weren't contributing to the story much, but there are other ways to write people out of a show, like just not showing them too much. Look what happened to Naomi's mom!
You know, the best thing you can say about Voyager is that it is consistent. TNG, for all that it's beloved by the fanboys, has more than its fair share of goofiness. DS9 can be dark. I never did like TOS, and Enterprise? Completely eaten by some stupid plots.
But Voyager, despite having some inconsistent writing and characterization, is a mostly consistent watching experience. You know going in what you're gonna get, like ordering off the dollar menu at McDonald's. 45 minutes of more or less enjoyable TV that doesn't make you think too hard and doesn't make you throw something at the wall either. There are a couple of highlights, and a couple of really awful low points, and mostly it's just... middling.
Anyway, now we're at the episode where Seven's implant is malfunctioning, and that one always bugs me. They ship off three (or four, if you remember the baby) of the Borg children, and I can kinda see why they might want to have the boys raised by their own people, but here's my thoughts on this:
1. As this episode proves, former Borg have special medical needs. Are these people capable of dealing with those? Voyager's doctor is something of a self-taught expert, and given how rare ex-Borg seem to be, is anybody going to have that knowledge on this planet?
2. These kids are going to be raised with the twins' "people", not with their "family", which would suggest that their family is dead. Well, that makes sense. Is it really worth taking them away from the family they've spent a year with so they can live in some alien foster care? It seems probable that at least some of those people might hate the Borg, and resent the presence of former Borg among them, even children. Voyager might be an emotionally safer atmosphere for them, given that there are fewer people and they all know the kids.
3. The last time they tried to pass a kid off to his people, those people turned out to have no compunction whatsoever about using him as bait. Not that I blame them, exactly, but exactly how thoroughly did they vet these folks?
4. I know Voyager goes home soon, but they didn't know that yet. They really need to start popping out more babies, taking on more orphans if they expect to have anybody crewing the ship by the time they reach Earth again. At this point they're still (as far as they know) a good 30 - 40 years from Earth.
Yes, I grasp that the writers figured that 3 out of 4 of the ex-Borg children (not counting the baby which everybody forgot) weren't contributing to the story much, but there are other ways to write people out of a show, like just not showing them too much. Look what happened to Naomi's mom!
