Jammer's Reviews Return

Jamahl 'Jammer' Epsicokhan has made good on his April Fools Day promise to catch up on his back reviews before the airing of the next new Voyager episode, 'Q2'. Online now are five new reviews, one each for 'Lineage', 'Prophecy', 'The Void', 'Workforce I & II' and 'Human Error'. A sixth, a look at 'Repentance', is due up within the next day or two.

'Lineage', Jammer noted as having "exceptionally good and believable character work, with an ending that falls a bit short," in his review of the episode. Rating is 3.5 out of 4 stars, he found it to be "one of Voyager's best-characterized episodes in some time, showing a cast that comes across as well oiled and execution that for the most part is flawless." He added that: "It's not the sort of sci-fi/action outing that many fans of the series may hope to get, but it shows the creators of this series still know how to tell good, truthful, understated stories about their characters."

Follow-up Torres episode, 'Prophecy', however, didn't fair quite as well, garnering only two stars. Calling it "a mostly aimless story with the usual Klingon mumbo-jumbo", Jammer concludes his review with the thoughts: "For a story to work, it must convince us that it knows what its point is. "Prophecy" spreads things out and tries to do a little of everything. In the process it ends up doing surprisingly little."

The following week's episode, 'The Void', however, managed to gain another star, despite the reviewer "almost choking on the irony outside the story." In particular, he liked the 'musical aliens', which he said were the "first truly intriguing aliens in awhile, with quirky and endearing mannerisms and a method of communication that for once isn't reduced to immediate English." More of Jammer's thoughts on the episode can be found here.

Moving forward again: like many other reviewers, Jammer found part one of 'Workforce' to be marginally stronger than its second half - though both were pretty solid offerings. "The only thing missing from 'Workforce,'" he says, "is a powerful ending. The first half shows the signs of a subtle message episode, highlighting ordinary issues of daily employment as filtered through a harrowing sci-fi premise. Part two is skillful, well-characterized plot wrap-up, but with an ending a little too routine for my tastes." To find out more on why part one got 3.5 stars and part two only got 3, read the full review.

The last review in the update is, of course, for the much-hyped 'Human Error'. Calling it the "ultimate Reset Button Plot" he, like most other reviewers, was impressed by the general scope of the episode, only to be let down by the ending. "Oh, the writers try to peddle to us the notion that this is groundbreaking character analysis," he remakrs, "but who are they kidding? We travel what seems to be the fascinating journey of a character (Seven of Nine, naturally) only to have it all yanked away in the last five minutes. What's the point of that?" More of his review, where he rated the episode only two stars, can be found by following this link.

More Star Trek reviews by Jamahl Epsicokhan can be found at Star Trek: Hypertext, a part of the Trek Nation.

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