There's a war on. Known in this planet's weird, sort of old-timey vernacular as The Clash and Chakotay stumbles into it--probably after crashing his shuttle and never mentioning the red shirt Generic Ensign who burned up in the flaming wreckage. How does this keep happening? How many shuttles do that have anyway? Do they just replicate more? Haven't they lost three or four already? Back to it: I feel like Chakotay immediately falls in with some seemingly almost defenseless rebels who've been totally ravaged by some jerk aliens. It's worth mentioning at this point that the rebels look human and the aliens look kinda toothey and cool like... predator. I remember them being kind of predator-ish. Is that right?
So then... hm... So probably then Chakotay is all, "I don't want to help you fight! This isn't my war! My people have a saying--" And then he's cut off because they get fired on and Chakotay gets hurt and he wakes up in one of these villages where everyone's still gibbering away like Chaucer and a little girl hands him a flower necklace ??? and likely says something like, "I pluck-nabbed these pungent blossoms for you." And Chakotay's probably all like, 'Oh thank you. You know, my people have a saying abou--" And then he gets cut off again because the aliens attack and everyone dies and probably he finds the girl's.... doll? I don't know, that seems like something you would do. And he's all sad about it and the human-style aliens probably put a hand on his shoulder and say something like, "My seeing-balls are water-full as are yours, brother. Join alongside us human-types in The Clash." And Chatokay's like, "YES! Oh, by the way, my people have a custom where--" But then they're attacked again and Chakotay has to put all his Maquis skillz to use and I think maybe he nullifies a bunch of predator types.
Ok. So then they run around in the forest for a while, babbling like Beowulf, and finally Chakotay stumbles into.... who would it be? Tuvok and Tom maybe? And he's like, "What? My own cousins and brethren fighting with the Nemesis across the gulf of the Clash!?" And they're all, "Yeah and--" But then Chakotay says, "The fathers and grandfathers from whom I came have full many tellings on this topic..." At which point Tuvok probably does some stoic tough guy stuff and they all beam back to Voyager and Chakotay finds out...
HE WAS SCAMMED!
These nice looking human aliens weren't nice at all! They were jerks. The toothey guys were the nice guys and Chakotay fell into the human-types' brainwashing training program! Back on the ship he sees one of the predator guys and super wants to kill him. Is this right? And Janeway's like, "Boy they really had you goin', huh?"
And the The Doctor says something about his mom being a turnip. And I remember legit laughing at that because it always for some reason reminded me of this:
'Hated this one. But you did a really good job of remembering it.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the only rabbits this episode pulls out of its hat, is that in the end, Chakotay holds onto his hate for the alien race - which is kind of "unlike" what we'd normally see in Trek. It's the most honest, and well-acted aspect of the entire story. It can be truly difficult to let go of our aggression and hatred when we've worked ourselves up to genuinely hating someone. I have to admit, I'm actually becoming a Robert Beltran fan this time around. Who knew? Otherwise this episode has cringe-worthy performances and really, really contrived attempts to make the dialogue eloquent and alien (possibly in homage to "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra") but it just sucks big, fat cumbersome donkey balls.
"Seeing-balls"
ReplyDeleteLoved the weirdo language in this one. It was grating and ridiculous and unusual. I ended up liking it...eventually. Also love how Chakotay has sayings of his people. ;-) haha...hey, it's a good way to make a point, right?