I liked it too, great art style. Although since I'm already nitpicking: a morning star on a chain seems like the least practical underwater weapon imaginable.
In Le Morte d'Arthur we learn that the scabbard is actually more valuable than Excalibur itself because any wounds received by the bearer wold never bleed. In the final panel of the comic there is a large pool of blood forming, presumably by the lady of the lake's death (or maybe her hand being bitten off). There shouldn't be blood.
Good metaphor, particularly for Cause and Effect, but that episode doesn’t qualify because every loop iteration actually happened.
I like this theory in general and I think modern TV could benefit from more slower paced bottle shows. Maybe the fake-out is just an easy device to write within those constraints. But why does Voyager use it so much more than other Trek shows?
Projections is a perfectly good early Doctor episode. It walks so that later Doctor episodes can run and be even more amazing. For me, in re-watches particularly, it has at least one too many fake-out to make it really great (the false ending with Kes in sickbay). A few more on that list a really good too; it almost pained me to put Living Witness on there for example because I love it. I felt a little better about it when I went back and saw that almost all the TNG episodes that do fake-outs were good to great.
Voyager constantly uses the "everything goes back to the way it was" ending, but I didn't count all of them because they're mostly not designed to fool the viewers. Threshold is a fine example of that trope and a bad episode (though I softened to it a little bit listening to the Delta Flyers podcast; at least I get what they were going for now) so I'm right there with you on that one.
Ha. Yeah, I enjoy a Doctor Who sometimes but I almost never actually retain them in my memory, and one reason might be because I know going in that they're all going to end in some kind of hyper-contrived insanity. Which isn't to say I don't like them, just that it's harder to remember stuff that has no connection to anything!
Voyager's preoccupation with fake-outs
I've been watching a good amount of Voyager recently and it made me notice how many episodes feature or hinge on faking-out the audience. So I went through the episodes and made a little list.
What I'm considering a fake-out: if the episode or scene itself is framed to make the audience think something is real when it isn't real, or if the events of the episode or scene are non-real by the end of the episode (e.g. "it was all a dream" or "we went back in time and changed it so it doesn't count").
Voyager episodes with fake-outs: S1E3 Time and Again - Whole episode is undone by time travel S2E3 Projections - Whole episode is a fake-out, with a bonus fake-out fake ending S2E5 Non Sequitur - Whole episode undone by the end S2E8 Persistence of Vision - Multiple hallucination based fake-outs S3E15 Coda - Multiple fake deaths framed to be real, then a fake exit to the situation S3E25 Worst Case Scenario - Fake-out mutiny in the beginning S4E4 Nemesis - Almost nothing in the episode actually took place S4E9 Year of Hell Part 2 - Undid all of the episode (and the one before!) by the end S4E13 Waking Moments - Multiple fake awakenings S4E17 Retrospect - False memories presented as real to the audience (and, really, the episode itself does a poor job of "disproving" them in the end anyway) S4E23 Living Witness - Opening scene fake-out with holographic recreation evil crew S4E24 Demon - Fake Tom and Harry S4E25 One - Fake evil alien S5E6 Timeless - Entire episode undone by time travel S5E18 Course: Oblivion - Entire fake ship S5E24 Relativity - Events undone by time travel S6E3 Barge of the Dead - Multiple fake deaths, visions S6E4 Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy - Opening scene fake-out by daydreaming Doctor S6E14 Memorial - Fake memories presented as real to audience S6E23 Fury - Episode events undone by time travel
(Edited with examples)
There were also quite a few episodes I left off that I felt were borderline fake-out. A few of the listed episodes are really good but the majority are distressingly lazy or inconsequential. In fact I remember watching the original run of Voyager and easily predicting when a new scene would be a fake-out after a while. For reference I also did a quick look at TNG's fake-out episodes and here's what I came up with:
Yesterday's Enterprise Remember Me Future Imperfect Conundrum The Inner Light Frame of Mind Parallels Eye of the Beholder
Of which Yesterday's Enterprise and Inner Light might not count, particularly in light of follow-up episodes (Unification and Lessons, respectively). Furthermore, of that TNG list I'd say they're all pretty good except maybe Frame of Mind and Eye of the Beholder.
Has anyone else noticed this tendency of the Voyager writers? Or have feelings about how that device is used in the other series?
Yeah, now that people mention it I do think the VISOR would help quite a bit. Early on in TNG he even says he can detect if humans are lying from the minute physical changes (although the writers clearly drop that later, see his record at poker). Clearly that should be able to pick up all sorts of problems like internal temperature fluctuations and heart rate and in fact it does [The Enemy, TNG]. But what we don't see is Geordi ever fixing those things on a humanoid on screen. So he might be better than O'Brien, but I still think B'Elanna has the edge overall. Even if my logic is iffy (and it is: she fixes the Doctor so she knows about doctoring? Eh) on screen other characters acknowledge her medical skills. Including the Doctor, who gives her genetic re-sequencing idea serious consideration before she reprograms him. Would she be a better medic than even Tom Paris, who has a lot of practice but clearly doesn't like the work? I doubt it, but I'd probably take her in a life or death situation over the other engineers based solely on the primary sources.
I think we can pretty safely put Scotty and Trip at the bottom of the pile. They've never shown any specific aptitude for medical work and I think 24th century Starfleet basic medical training and technology helps everyone else. Of the remaining three, Geordi seems like he would be very nice and try to be as helpful as possible about your injuries, but I'm ranking him 3rd overall. I don't recall O'Brien ever doing anything on screen to indicate his medical competence, but we can guess that maybe he's seen enough combat to have picked up some of the basics, so second place to Miles. Torres, with her extensive knowledge of programming and reprogramming the Doctor (enough to suggest a DNA re-sequencing of her own baby to the Doctor [Lineage, Voy]) and the fact that her year at the academy may have been a double major in engineering and medical [Extreme Risk, Voy] makes me put her in first place.
2 points in round 1! 0 for round 2. Still a fun game, thanks for making them.
0 points. Brutal. I actually felt like I was getting further away with each clue. Still a good game though.
Kingdom Death: Monster may be my biggest if we're counting the volume of both the game box and the miniatures box. If not Twilight Imperium is big but I think the big Galaxy Trucker-and-expansion in one box is taller and might be bigger overall.
Smallest for me is probably Codenames. Unless Set counts.
The Culture and it isn't even close.