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| 'End every sentence with an exclamation point!' |
I'm glad we're kicking this countdown off with an episode that I love. I mean, I love this episode.
So, you have no idea how much I hope that this was someone's first episode ever of Star Trek. Because I am fascinated by the idea of someone with no context for this show, it's characters, premise, history, or clue of what was going on, trying to parse out what was happening in "Bride of Chaotica!" Because through that lens, this episode is completely batshit. Ridiculously fun, but completely batshit.
Now, we're talking about "Bride of Chaotica!," the twelfth episode from Voyager's fifth season. It's a holodeck-gone-wrong episode. But instead of the fictional characters from the holodeck becoming sentient and running amok, we have aliens made of light from the fifth dimension in an all-out war with... you know what? If you haven't seen it, none of this is going to make any sense whatsoever. So, let's take a step back.
But first, let's assume two things. One, that you've got some familiarity with Trek in general and Voyager in specific.
Tom Paris and Harry Kim are playing a holodeck program modeled after a 1930s scifi serial where Captain Proton defends earth from evil forces of Dr. Chaotica from Planet X. Paris, playing the black-and-white hero, while in the process of fighting the evil doctor bent on nothing short of galactic domination, discovers an anomaly opening a hole to another reality opens up in the holodeck. This causes Voyager to be caught dead in it's tracks and unable to escape. Beings from the anomaly bleed into the program with the intent on making contact with our reality. But because their 'photonic' entities, they mistake the holodeck program for reality. And because Chaotica is eeeeevil, he will settle for nothing short of total domination of the fifth dimension. Chaotica's fake forces start murdering the visitors from the fifth dimension. Murdering them. A program designed to be the cartoonish villain in a pulp serial is straight-up killing these aliens, because in the holodeck, his weapons made of holograms are lethal to the beings made of light. The aliens don't realize that Chaotica is a character in a program, because he, like them, is made of light and energy, and they interpret him as a real person. And from their perspective, a crazy person with a powerful arsenal of death rays, is blasting the bejeezus out of them from behind an impenetrable lightning shield. I'm not going to lie, it's awesome.
In fact, my favorite scene is where Paris, Captain Proton himself, tries to explain the situation to Janeway. They can't stop the program for some technobabble reason, they can't move the ship for some other technobabble reason. And the only way to stop the war and save the new beings is for the crew to embrace the madness of the program, with the Doctor presenting himself as the President of Earth and Captain Janeway taking on the role of Arachnia, Queen of the Spider people, in an attempt to distract Chaotica while Paris and team take down his death ray and save Planet X, Earth, the Aliens and sanity. It's actually much crazier than I'm describing.
And it's kind of wonderful.
It's loopy, goofy, surreal, and, well, it's undeniably fun. It's bombastic and fantastically over the top. They've dipped into the Captain Proton universe before in a couple episodes as a throw-away gag, but here they embrace the goofiness of the premise and throw caution to the wind.
I've always wanted to like Voyager more than I do, but it's always hit or miss for me. But here, it hits. They're taking a chance on something silly. Something that could have easily been a disaster of epic proportions. And in lesser hands it might have been.
This episode comes to us from Bryan Fuller, who has story credit and shares writing credit with Michael Taylor. Fuller is one of my favorite people working in television. He's a left-of-center storyteller with credits that include the magnificent Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, the interesting if flawed reboot of the Munsters, Mockingbird Lane, and the utterly, completely badass Hannibal. Seriously, Hannibal is about as far from Bride of Chaotica as you could possibly get and still come from the same brain.
Trek, in all of its television incarnations, has always experimented with different forms of storytelling. Different formats, different framing devices, different perspectives. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Trek at it's heart, is about exploring. And here, they're definitely pushing themselves outside their comfort zone. This episode embraces its premise with both arms and never lets go.
For that, I am grateful.
--
Next up, Klingons, Kirk, and Spock in "Day of the Dove."
Now, we're talking about "Bride of Chaotica!," the twelfth episode from Voyager's fifth season. It's a holodeck-gone-wrong episode. But instead of the fictional characters from the holodeck becoming sentient and running amok, we have aliens made of light from the fifth dimension in an all-out war with... you know what? If you haven't seen it, none of this is going to make any sense whatsoever. So, let's take a step back.
But first, let's assume two things. One, that you've got some familiarity with Trek in general and Voyager in specific.
Tom Paris and Harry Kim are playing a holodeck program modeled after a 1930s scifi serial where Captain Proton defends earth from evil forces of Dr. Chaotica from Planet X. Paris, playing the black-and-white hero, while in the process of fighting the evil doctor bent on nothing short of galactic domination, discovers an anomaly opening a hole to another reality opens up in the holodeck. This causes Voyager to be caught dead in it's tracks and unable to escape. Beings from the anomaly bleed into the program with the intent on making contact with our reality. But because their 'photonic' entities, they mistake the holodeck program for reality. And because Chaotica is eeeeevil, he will settle for nothing short of total domination of the fifth dimension. Chaotica's fake forces start murdering the visitors from the fifth dimension. Murdering them. A program designed to be the cartoonish villain in a pulp serial is straight-up killing these aliens, because in the holodeck, his weapons made of holograms are lethal to the beings made of light. The aliens don't realize that Chaotica is a character in a program, because he, like them, is made of light and energy, and they interpret him as a real person. And from their perspective, a crazy person with a powerful arsenal of death rays, is blasting the bejeezus out of them from behind an impenetrable lightning shield. I'm not going to lie, it's awesome.
In fact, my favorite scene is where Paris, Captain Proton himself, tries to explain the situation to Janeway. They can't stop the program for some technobabble reason, they can't move the ship for some other technobabble reason. And the only way to stop the war and save the new beings is for the crew to embrace the madness of the program, with the Doctor presenting himself as the President of Earth and Captain Janeway taking on the role of Arachnia, Queen of the Spider people, in an attempt to distract Chaotica while Paris and team take down his death ray and save Planet X, Earth, the Aliens and sanity. It's actually much crazier than I'm describing.
And it's kind of wonderful.
It's loopy, goofy, surreal, and, well, it's undeniably fun. It's bombastic and fantastically over the top. They've dipped into the Captain Proton universe before in a couple episodes as a throw-away gag, but here they embrace the goofiness of the premise and throw caution to the wind.
I've always wanted to like Voyager more than I do, but it's always hit or miss for me. But here, it hits. They're taking a chance on something silly. Something that could have easily been a disaster of epic proportions. And in lesser hands it might have been.
This episode comes to us from Bryan Fuller, who has story credit and shares writing credit with Michael Taylor. Fuller is one of my favorite people working in television. He's a left-of-center storyteller with credits that include the magnificent Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, the interesting if flawed reboot of the Munsters, Mockingbird Lane, and the utterly, completely badass Hannibal. Seriously, Hannibal is about as far from Bride of Chaotica as you could possibly get and still come from the same brain.
Trek, in all of its television incarnations, has always experimented with different forms of storytelling. Different formats, different framing devices, different perspectives. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Trek at it's heart, is about exploring. And here, they're definitely pushing themselves outside their comfort zone. This episode embraces its premise with both arms and never lets go.
For that, I am grateful.
--
Next up, Klingons, Kirk, and Spock in "Day of the Dove."
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