{"id":4822,"date":"2018-03-05T06:48:09","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T06:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/110-Prime-Factors"},"modified":"2018-03-05T06:48:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T06:48:09","slug":"110-prime-factors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/05\/110-prime-factors\/","title":{"rendered":"1.10 — \u201cPrime Factors\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

1.10 — \u201cPrime Factors\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot:<\/strong> A distress call lures Voyager<\/em> to the planet of the Sikarians, who live for pleasure. Sikaria has the technology to fold space in ways that have the potential of bringing Voyager<\/em> home, but their laws forbid sharing the technology with outsiders, in a manner similar to the Federation\u2019s Prime Directive. Can Janeway persuade them to share this technology? If she can\u2019t, can she control her crew?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thoughts:<\/strong> I had mixed feelings about this episode, which puts the best and worst of Voyager<\/em>, as we know it so far, on display. The worst comes in the form of a creatively uninspired alien species inhabiting the same uninspired white sound stage visited on every other Voyager<\/em> away mission. Harry Kim again plays the role of the aggressively normal guy who can\u2019t help falling in love with the first native woman he meets, who holds the key to the weak dilemma of the week. Or do I just feel like this always happens because it happened last episode in 1.9, \u201cEmanations?\u201d In the episode before that Tom Paris fell in love with the native girl, so I concede there has been some variety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I guess the writers are still finding the characters, but the dialogue is quite tired. It’s not so much dialogue as a string of heteronormative clich\u00e9s that haven\u2019t aged well, if they could even pass muster in 1995. The Delaney Sisters, indeed. You mean those sex-mad objectified harridans? Don\u2019t give them too much of your virtue, Harry! Just enough! Janeway\u2019s interactions with Gathoral Labin are scarcely better. He grabs on to her in public in ways that make me want to yell TIME\u2019S UP!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just when I think I\u2019m going to pan the episode completely, it veers into the kind of story that is uniquely Voyager<\/em>, of Janeway impotent, unable to control her crew, utterly vulnerable with no tools available but moral reasoning and persuasion after she her betrayal, separately, by B\u2019Elanna and Tuvok. The closing scenes as Janeway confronts her officers are so powerful, I want to watch them again. What, indeed, is stopping Voyager<\/em> from turning pirate, 70 light years away from anyone who knows them? Far beyond trafficking with smugglers and underworld types (which is what I think they were trying to suggest with the stories for tech exchange), what\u2019s to stop them from taking what they want by force?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let\u2019s say that B\u2019Elanna, Seska, and Joseph Carey had succeeded in getting the phlebotinum to work. Would mutiny have followed? Would it have been necessary to depose, maroon, or kill Janeway to override her objection and conceal their crime? Episodes like this reveal what a thread Voyager<\/em> is hanging on, and Kate Mulgrew\u2019s performance shows how well Janeway understands this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Seeing the Prime Directive from the other side is a clever idea. The concept isn’t <\/p>\n\n\n\n

butchered as badly as it could have been, although I still yearn for a thorough, thoughtful exploration of the idea. The sunrise on Alastria is beautifully realized. And yet, the technobabble is worse than ever, and so many plot details range from sloppy to completely implausible. So far we\u2019re getting the good with the bad in Voyager<\/em> Season One.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3.5 of 5 spatial trajectors.<\/p>\n\n\n

http:\/\/memory-alpha.wikia.com\/wiki\/Prime_Factors<\/a>