Nemesis

All in all, this episode was a painful one and so far the only episode of Voyager I've come to review/write about due to my experience. There are some fantastic episodes in all the seasons and I was looking forward to this season's episodes after the stellar beginnings however this one left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

It effectively uses pseudoscience and leaps of faith on the audience's part in order to skip many unanswered questions. The episode's moral is simple: Hate is taught, not something you're born with.

However, the way that it is taught to the characters in this episode are vague and confusing. They attempt to tell you with simple, very idiotic explanations as to how this is achieved however what you EXPERIENCE and what they said happen don't seem to match.

In the end, I understand what they were driving at here however just because it's science FICTION doesn't mean you can have swiss-cheese plot lines and holes in your concept wide enough to drive trucks through.

I promise, no spoilers

Suffice it to say, this episode cleverly pays with one's ability to separate 'good' from 'bad'.

I watched this episode from beginning, and try not to read the abysmally, amateurish 'synopsis' one finds (a note to all people who want to write a synopsis; such as that idiot, who's all over IMdB, 'h-gg-' - all a synopsis is is a BRIEF description of the MAIN plot, so fit this episode, that's nothing more than CmdrChakotay's shuttle is shot down in the crossfire if a planet's war zone.

That's ALL. I'd one wants to write more, that's A PLOT OUTLINE.

The synopsis SHOULDN'T tell one the intricacies of a plot. That's what a viewer wants - should - find out in their own, and with am episode like this, the less said, the better.

I must hands it to the terrific wiring, which was able 'alienise' simple English, in such a way that even without makeup and appliances, the group who Chakotay spends most of his time with have a terrific speech cadence.

The old saying, don't judge a book by it's cover, is very true, here.

I world make this episode must-see viewing for ALL children, so they could better understand t this simple idea.

I know I didn't say a lot about this episode - I don't like to spoil things for others, but, I HIGHLY recommend it be seen.

When the show begins, you see that Chakotay was shot down in his shuttle and he's rescued by some soldiers who talk really, really strangely. It's so strange that it's distracting and I could see someone being turned off by this. Well, don't...the show will get better.

Soon you learn that these people are at war with a race they call 'nemesis' and according to them nemesis is simply awful and evil. Over time, Chakotay gets to see himself just how ugly and nasty the brutish nemesis can be.

All during this time, Voyager and their crew are looking for Chakotay--with the help of these supposedly ugly, nasty and brutish folks. Oddly, however, they are very different from the folks Chakotay has come to know. So what REALLY is happening here?!

The answer to all this is terrific--and it makes this an excellent episode. See it...and ignore the goofy language.

NOT a fan of this episode. It feels like something written by a barely pubescent boy. It is corny, corny, corny. The author/s made up these words for the "alien" characters, and you could see they thought it was really clever, but it was just annoying. Words like "trunks" instead of trees, and "glimpse" instead of see/saw, "nullified" instead of dead/kill, "new light" instead of morning, "trembling" instead of afraid/scared, "soon after" instead of simply soon, "fast walk" instead of run, etc. The problem is they created far too little words and use these words over and over and OVER and OVER and it quickly becomes so irritating you just want to stop watching the episode and go onto the next one, not caring one bit what happens to any of the characters. The acting of almost every guest star was absolutely terrible and I can only attribute that to the simply terrible dialogue. What were they supposed to do with it? Meryl Streep and Anthony Hopkins couldn't have done anything with the script, let alone all the unknown actors. The slang simply makes no sense. Why would you say "soon after" instead of soon for instance? The big reveal was incredibly disappointing. They fact that it was going to be a twist was broadcast minutes after the theme song. SO boring and this is my second time in seeing it in 25 or more years and it will probably be 25 years before I subject myself to seeing it again.

Chakotay has his shuttlecraft shot down (these things seem to be about as disposable as Kleenex) and finds himself in the middle of war between two factions on a planet. The group that finds him seem to be guerrilla fighters, handsome human soldiers, and the enemy are an ugly (to us) looking reptilian group. I won't go into detail because it would ruin it for some. Chakotay is taken in by a syrupy group of survivors, particularly a cute little girl, and given basic supplies to fight "Nemesis." There are some twists and turns that make this entertaining enough, but, once again, try not to think too much.