The Cynics Corner

Star Trek: Voyager

"Juggernaut"

by David E. Sluss

27 April 1999

 
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THE BOTTOM LINE
: Voyager does Toxic Avenger. Gets serious social disease as a result.

CYNICS CORNER RATING: 6.0 (D-)

SPATIAL ANOMALY OF THE WEEK: The presence of the Mylar, last seen some 20,000 light years away from Voyager's present position, thanks to "Timeless" and "Dark Frontier," is never explained. If the Mylar have transwarp tech or their space is 20,000 light years across, there's never been any indication. And, before anyone starts in, I don't buy the wormhole rationalization that I've seen bandied about. "Night" made it pretty clear that Emck's wormhole shenanigans were not standard Mylar procedure and implied that Mylar headquarters wouldn't be too happy with Emck if they found out about it. It's clear to me that Voyager's transwarp and shitstream jumps were forgotten, just like Kes' "Gift" was so many times last year.

SPATIAL ANOMALY OF THE WEEK FIRST RUNNER-UP: The lead Mylar claims that "We go to a lot of trouble to find isolated areas to dump the antimatter waste." Space ain't that inhabited, pal...

SPATIAL ANOMALY OF THE WEEK SECOND RUNNER-UP: As Voyager is chasing the Mylar ship, it sure seemed in a couple of scenes as though the stars were passing by too quickly, considering both ships were traveling at sublight speed.

GELDED ALIEN RACE OF THE WEEK: I've often complained about how Star Trek's villain races are so often humanized and made less and less menacing after repeated appearances (i.e. Borg, Species 8472). Now, it's the Malon's turn. Before they were just scummy polluters; now they're scummy polluters who make toys for tots, produce art on their off days, and wax poetic about their home planet. Still, before one can be a gelding, one has to have the giblets to begin with, and the Mylar were never more than a fourth-rate adversary. I certainly hope this is the last of them, but as much as the writers botched their geography, I half-expect them to be the next "surprise" race to sign on with the Dominion...

MALE DEMOGRAPHIC PLOY OF THE WEEK: Funny how, with five characters on the Mylar garbage scow, only B'Elanna wound up having to strip down to a form-fitting tank top. I guess a plot-logical outfit like, say, an environment suit wasn't flattering enough, even though it could have kept her from hacking every other minute.

MALE DEMOGRAPHIC PLOY OF THE WEEK RUNNER-UP: B'Elanna's "undress and shower" scene.

CLICHE AVOIDED OF THE WEEK: Stock horror cliches (fog, monster's-eye-view camera angles, creature heavy breathing, etc.) abounded in this episode, but the one which was somehow avoided was the "presumed-dead monster comes back for one last shot at the Hero" cliche. In this case, when B'Elanna clobbered the Toxic Avenger, she clobbered him thoroughly, so that he stayed down.
 

Previous: "Think Tank"
Next: "Someone To Watch
Over Me
"
NEXT WEEK: Who gets to take Seven's .... place at astrometrics while she is out on a date?

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