[VOY] Brian the Snorf's Quick Reviews: "Waking Moments"
Brian the Snorf
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[VOY] "Waking Moments"
Written by: Andre Bormanis and Kenneth Biller
Directed by: Alexander Singer
Voyager does it again. Why think up new ideas when you can just mush
together a few of the old ones? Take a large helping of TNG's "Night
Terrors", a dash of "Frame of Mind", and mix them in large bowl along with
at least half of VOY's own "Displaced". After 5 hours at 350 F (or 2
minutes on super-nuke in the microwave), you'll have baked yourself up
"Waking Moments". However, you may want to put that mixing spoon away for
now. While "Waking Moments" is at least watchable, it isn't as good as
any of its ingredients.
First off, the Bad Aliens of the Week (tm) simply had no real motive.
We've seen quite a few aliens (Vidians, Kazon, Voth, those guys from
"Displaced", etc.) attempt to steal Voyager. But at least we understood
for the most part _why_. And if the writers couldn't think of any reason,
why not just let him give the same excuse that one guy from "Persistence
of Vision" did? ("Why did you do this?" "Because I can.") Second, I just
don't buy some of the technobabble presented here. That all of the crew
would be having the same dream (and a rather mundane, reality-grounded one
at that) and also HAVE THE SAME SLEEP PATTERNS was just plain silliness.
A few more things irked me: the bad lines (ex: "turning the dream reality
into a nightmare" or whatever), the stupid pocket protector Torres got
stuck with (do all pregnant women get those from now on?), and the
oh-for-the-love-of-God-is-this-pedestrian ending. (Not to mention stupid--
if Chakotay really needed that drug, replicate another one and beam it
down! Agh.)
What _was_ good? The use of the moon imagery, not knowing what or what
wasn't a dream, and the fact that it didn't take our intrepid heroes half
the show to realize they all dreamt about the same dude. Uh...that's
about it.
But, I'll end by saying this. I was pleasantly surprised by this
episode. It was great, good, or even just so-so. A bit below that. But
it managed to stay just above total crappiness, and I admire it when
Voyager does that.
Rating: 6.7
P.S. The previews are getting worse and worse. For DS9, they now have the
Big Words (tm) along with the SAME MUSIC EVERY PREVIEW FOR THE ENTIRE
SEASON! But maybe that's a blessing, considering the friggin porno tunes
the UPN execs pumped (pardon the pun) over the ultra-cheesy "Resistance is
futile" *kiss* *slobber* scene for this VOY episode.
P.P.S. Man, I just noticed that this review sucked. Hmm. Must be being
back in college again...it's using too many of my limited quantity of
brain cells.
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The Snorf's rating system:
0.0-3.5 What was that all about? I'm embarrassed to be watching.
3.6-5.0 Yawn. Could have been much, much better.
5.1-6.5 A few good parts, but mostly a snoozer.
6.6-7.5 Watch it. You may like it. Or you may not.
7.6-8.5 Not too shabby.
8.6-9.3 Good episode. A keeper.
9.4-9.9 The best of the bunch. These are the ones you can tell your
friends that don't even like Star Trek to watch.
10.0!!! Never happened in my lifetime...but you never know!
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