Conference 7.286::star_trek

I saw some heavy-duty spoiler info on this on the web.  Looks *really* good.
Major Borg episode.

						Brian

    
    I caught the trailer for it last night, and said "someone more powerful
    that the borg" like Janeway said! This one looks to be some serious
    doo-doo for them/borg! Should be enticing anyways!
    
    And did you see ALL the borg ships! Woo-Hoo as homer simpson would say!
    
    

UPN - Voyager - (STV326)

"Scorpion, Part I" - As they approach the heart of dangerous Borg territory,
the Voyager crew witnesses the near decimation of a Borg armada by a mysterious
alien lifeform which is impervious to both Borg and Starfleet technology. When
Kim and Chakotay lead an Away Team inside the heavily damaged Borg cube, they
are able to investigate the alien lifeform's bio-ship. Moments before they are
transported out, Kim is viciously attacked by the mysterious organic-looking
alien. As he lies in Sickbay, contaminated with alien cells and transforming
into an alien being, Kes has terrorizing premonitions about the new enemy and
Janeway realizes it's no longer the Borg they must be worried about. 

Starring Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway, Robert Beltran as Chakotay, Roxann
Biggs-Dawson as B'Elanna Torres, Jennifer Lien as Kes, Robert Duncan McNeill as
Lt. Tom Paris, Ethan Phillips as Neelix, Robert Picardo as The Doctor, Tim Russ
as Tuvok, Garrett Wang as Harry Kim. 

Guest starring is John Rhys-Davies as Leonardo Da Vinci. 

The story was written by Brannon Braga and directed by Joe Menosky. 

    
    I've been looking forward with great anticipation to this episode. But
    I had family flying in. No problem, I'll record it. Get home, see the
    great enticing intro scenes, fast-forward past the commercials to catch
    the title scene, then zap, the tape jammed! 

    Talk about a tease! After having been all worked up by the intro.
    Grrrrr. Feeling I almost have grounds to sue Maxell corp. :-)

    Ch-38 Boston repeats this episode on Sunday at 11:00PM, correct?
    And how about ch-64 Providence, do they broadcast it as well?

    -Erik 
    

Saturday at 11:00pm.

I hope you get to see it, it was great!  Most of the recent Voyager episodes
have been pretty good, I hope they can keep it up.

Spoilers...


Janeway's soul-searching, the new aliens, the suspense, the plot, all well
done.  The technobabble was plausible.  I'm glad they came up with an
explanation as to why they could figure out a solution whil the Borg could not;
that was beginning to bother me.

I don't find it quite as suspenseful as some other end-of-season cliffhangers,
but it doesn't need to be.  Obviously they are going to succeed in their plan,
and there are no obvious details of "how" that are left in the air, just "how
well" and "what happens during", so we're looking at a big action conclusion
with no big revelations.  That works.  (The best cliffhanger ending was Riker
ordering "Fire!" in BOBW.)

						Brian

          
          Good Episode.   The TV guide gave it (I think) a Four out of Ten.
          But what do they know.


          Spoilers:

          
          To me the best parts and most suspenseful were:

          With Harry, "Four cubes, no five...fifteen coming in behind us!"
          Voyager being tossed about in their wakes like a life raft!

          Also Harry downloading the Borg info and the alien screaming 
          somewhere else on the ship.  You knew there was a problem when
          the Borg high tail it out of there!!    

I think ch 64 shows it at 7:00PM saturday.  I know because I tried to 
tape DS9 at that time and eneded up getting a repeat of Voyager, since
I set up the VCR to tape 11 (ch 64 on the cable) instead of 23 (56 on
our cable).  SO DS9 repeats 11:30PM this coming sunday on ch 56, no?
(That would be last weeks DS9, the one with Eddington, that I'm missing...)

PeterT

(got the Voyager, but haven't watched it yet...)

    
    Yes, the previous week's DS9 repeat is at 11:30PM on Sunday on Ch 56.
    It's when I usually catch them too, 7PM Saturday is a horrible time for
    me.
     

>>     -< can't believe I've restrained myself from the spoilers so far... >-

You have great willpower.  I read the MAJOR spoilers (entire plot of the
episode) posted on the web weeks ago.

						Brian

    
    Everyone ready for channel changes with MediaOne taking over
    Continental Cablevisions programming? Mine just changed over yesterday
    (maybe night before) and I had to cycle to box. Now in Methuen I
    finally have Sci-Fi channel, Cartoon network, Bravo, HBO-02 and -03, 2
    more PPV's, Comedy Central, and maybe a couple more channels. WLVI 56
    is now on channel 13 I believe instead of 56. MediaOne says little more
    channel changes when new programming is added now. Nice of them to send
    a little intro letter and stickers and a channel foldout though! I will
    have to re-watch this episode this weekend or have it tapes as I have a
    bachelor party to go to....guess I'll put the girlfriend to work that
    night! ;-)
    
    

  Can someone put a plot summary behind a SPOILER warning?

  I missed it but I'm curious as to what happened.

  George

>>  Can someone put a plot summary behind a SPOILER warning?

Check out

	http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~nanyuan/ymvoy.html

    

    Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

    spoilers:
























    I saw at least  three very thinly veiled knock-off of Babylon5 
    in this episode

    1) The "Quantum Singularity" .eq. Jump Gate.  Besides I'd always
    understood a "singularity" to be basically a black hole.  As in
    the Romulan ships being powered by a singularity instead of the
    matter-antimatter power of the Federation and others.

    2) Biological ships--I don't remember the "Breen" being mentioned as
    using bio-technology in their ships before.  IMHO the mention of the
    "Breen" sort of came over as a weak attempt of saying "We had it 
    all along".

    3) My first glimpse of the "creature" I would have sworn a "Shadow"
    had boarded the ship.

    The "Trek" writers must be getting desperate for new ideas.

    fred()

    
    One can very easily see things where they want to see them...

    As far as the bio ship, it's been done in many places before, not just
    B5 or Star Trek. That said, there was a TNG episode with two bioship
    creatures which I believe predates B5, no?

    One could relish saying that B5 stole from Star Trek, but rather, I
    think Battlestar Galactica would be more in line...  :-)

Lots to like about this episode I think. You can't disparage the
show for not being as good as B5, then complain that it's copying
when it uses similar themes.

For one thing, points for an alien that's actually, you know, "alien", 
instead of Nose Putty of the Week. Also satisfying to see the Borg 
Warp nining it backwards for a change, ha!

And I like the name the Borg gave them--Species 4726 or whatever.
Too bad their motivation is uninteresting--the weak die. Yeah, so what.

I'm disappointed in the technological sameness of the aliens in general. 
They're all roughly on a par. This species for example though fearsome 
at first has already been shown to have a weakness that Janeway will 
exploit with a bit of tactical cleverness in September.

I would like to see some species powerful enough, other than Q, to use
Borg cubes to shoot craps with. Who aren't necessarily malevolent so
much as playful or oblivious. And to hear what the Borg say when rendered 
impotent. Likewise in this episode I wish Janeway drew them out a bit 
as in "So, how does it feel to get your arse kicked eh?"
                                  
Maybe that'll happen in the fall.

    Not a bad episode.  Nice to see everyone freaking out about the
    Borg ships coming after them, then have them pass by, have one
    scan Voyager, and then continue on.  I think I would have
    turned around at that point!
    
    As far as the non-face bump alien, it was another case of a totally
    CGI alien.  Provide by Foundation Imaging, which, of course, used
    to do the B5 graphics.  Don't want to stir up any intershow 
    animosity, but it seemed like a good place to make a slight correction.
    Someone a while back, don't remember who, or in what note, wondered
    if foundation imaging had provided some graphic effects for DS9.
    I'd replied probably not, as DS9 had their own team.  Seems
    now, though, that it may have been possible.  JMS, B5's creator,
    mentioned recently that Foundation was doing all of Voyagers
    graphics, and some of DS9's as well...  Oh, well, live and learn...
    
    PeterT
    

    I can't believe that the are going to help the borg assimilate this
    alien with there tecnology run by the borg they would be unstopable.
    
    just my 2 Cents

There was an episode of ST:TNG where there was a living ship.  The show
was a big Betazoid episode, and this high-powered Betazoid was brought in
to communicate with the being, only to find out that it was a living ship.

   Carol

    That TNG episode was "Tin Man".
    
    While I myself did not see any particular similarities between
    the CGI in this episode and any of B5's stuff, apparently 
    some did and brought this up in the usenet group.  I spawned
    a long answer from Mojo, one of the head graphic artists
    from Foundation, who went into specifics (one's tannish blue, 
    the other's black) and then into a general defense saying 
    none of these ideas are new, just different and interesting
    ways of packaging them.  JMS had a rather succinct reply,
    but I'll not offend anyone here with it, as it didn't really
    address the issue.  But it was funny.  Seems to be a bit of bad
    blood between B5 and their former graphics folks, though it
    might just be with Mojo and JMS in particular.
    
    PeterT