OVEG Video: Good Shepherd

[Sonnenburg]

Good Shepherd, where Janeway discovers a field of anomalies, and proves how compassionate she is by leading the three most inexperienced people she can find into it, just so she can have an excuse to shoot them.

Video

[Big Orange]

I give "Good Shepherd" a score of 6/10, but mostly due to the otherwise solid first half of this episode (especially the nicely directed trip from Janeway's readyroom to the belowdecks) and the entertaining guest characters, which I liked regardless of Janeway's increasingly kooky fieldtrip in the second half of the episode. So an episode of two halves.

As unintentionally funny as Janeway shooting the possessed Telfer was, I thought the way Janeway got them out of trouble was more hypocritical and skitzo. She scorns somebody for killing one alien, then 15 minutes later she is implied of killing hundreds more. Wait? What?!

I do agree that Harren's extreme talents were seemingly wasted; why the heck do you dump somebody with the IQ of 210 way down in the steerage decks, when he was better suited in Astrometrics alongside Seven? Not very logical staff allocation, but that said Harren could've been an asshole and saw working alone in a small cabin doing basic stuff gave him breathing space for his quantum physics hobby.

[Ghost Rider]

LOL, holy shit this is awesome. I vaguely remember the episode but I love that one has to wonder what the writers were thinking. Janeway is her usual bitching, one of the guys is a pussy that has an epiphany after getting buttraped, another is a dumb girl, and finally a character that gets derided for being decent.

[tezunegari]

Somehow Janeway must have taken lessons from Stalin: "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are statistics." (or somehow similar)

Are there any examples of Voyager having the plot be not contrieved and failing to portray the crew as normal beings.
How many times have the writers mary-sued Janeway and made her look loke a sociopathic serial-killer?

An incompetent redshirt, a hypochondriac, an introverted genius and that failing chick in gold uniform going on a family cruise... into a field filled with debris and anomalies.

I do agree that Harren's extreme talents were seemingly wasted; why the heck do you dump somebody with the IQ of 210 way down in the steerage decks, when he was better suited in Astrometrics alongside Seven? Not very logical staff allocation, but that said Harren could've been an asshole and saw working alone in a small cabin doing basic stuff gave him breathing space for his quantum physics hobby.

He wanted to be there and was more trouble than it was worth on other posts. I think he had an obsession with some sort of mathematical proof or something and the job in Voyagers guts got him enough time to play with his ideas.
And as stated by the character himself, being on Voyager was only a way to get a mandatory year in space for a job in one of Starfleets more theoretical branches.

[Crazedwraith]

I think I just caught the very end of this episode once. (Just remember the Delta Flyer blasting something with a rear torpedo) Still the review was good, especially the section relating conformism.

Still the guy does sound a bit of a dick, I mean so you were on a one year cruise till something better; your ship got lost. Rather than mope about slacking off on Deck 15 or whatever you could use your genius intellect to maybe help figure a way to get home maybe? So you can get to that nice cushy research post.

[tim31]

Read the MA rundown of it I remembered this was the episode with the Tom Morello cameo! Voyager sure did bring 'em out of hiding.

[Covenant]

I think I just caught the very end of this episode once. (Just remember the Delta Flyer blasting something with a rear torpedo) Still the review was good, especially the section relating conformism.

Still the guy does sound a bit of a dick, I mean so you were on a one year cruise till something better; your ship got lost. Rather than mope about slacking off on Deck 15 or whatever you could use your genius intellect to maybe help figure a way to get home maybe? So you can get to that nice cushy research post.

The way I interperted it was that he was a highly theoretical scientist, and Voyager was not only not meant to go anywhere interesting or do anything dangerous, but that he probably didn't care for the entire bullshit military dictatorship that Janeway was enforcing either. Sure, he was a bit of a dick, but from the way his character behaves it seems like he would have thrived on the Enterprise, where he could have sat at a station, analyzed their Survey Of The Week, and discussed things with fellow scientists. He's an introvert, but look at what happened on Voyager's maiden voyage?

You have an brainless sociopath in charge of the ship, your crew is mixed with a bunch of Federation terrorists right from the get-go. One of these spazzy terrorists, who "Can't Identify Shit Without a Tricorder," is assigned as your superior. He may have objected to working with terrorists, but who will he appeal that to? He may have objected to working with incompetents, but that's just Voyager standard. He may have objected to working for Janeway after seeing how she handles herself, or many other things, and he's really not military or any kind of Starfleet Officer that you'd understand to want to work on this ship at all. He may find himself constantly asked to scan for fuel, food, or traces of the Borg--things that may be far, far below his talents and which he may not even bring any special talent to. Given the choices, sequestering himself in the lower bowels of the ship might be a welcome release from the tedium.

Overall, I found him to be a pretty reasonable guy. We can't tell how he started out, but he's been harassed and mocked and his bosses are all incredibly stupid, he's under stress in an environment he didn't want to be in in, thrust into danger by people he has no reason to respect, and he has no power or ability to assert control.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I always figured Harren could've been working anywhere on Voyager, but anytime they try to give him a job that doesn't give him as much free time to do what he wants, he bitches and assholes it up until they send him back down to the dungeon.

He's down there because he LIKES it there. Can you imagine if he was in Stellar Cartography and had to deal with Harry Kim and Janeway on a day-to-day basis?

[Swindle1984]

Shit, if I were stuck on Voyager, I'd pick a work place that kept me from going on away missions (death sentence) or interacting with the officers as much as possible.

He seems quite reasonable to me.

[CorSec]

Dude. Seriously. You have some kind of special mutant power. This episode is coming on in a few minutes. I swear someone, somewhere, takes programming cues from your reviews. I'm telling you, I either notice or watch part of an episode and the next thing I know you're reviewing it -or- (as in this case) I watch a review and lo and behold, it's coming on television.

Stop it.

Seriously.