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Opinionated Voyager Episode Guide's second look at the Basics cliffhanger. In this installment you will no doubt notice my intense anti-Neelix sentiment - well, it's fully deserved. This is his moment to shine and he chokes big time. Given everything that happens because of him, he's lucky the most that happens is being mocked by me. Anyway, the Voyager crew is shoved off onto a barren planet and forced to survive on their own while the Kazon make off with Voyager.

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Its actually not surprising at all that Janeway assigned Harry and Neelix as group leaders, given her deplorable track record of assigning completely inappropriate people to other tasks in the past, like you ripped on in State of Flux.

As I have said before, the stupid bitch deserved to lose her ship. And frankly, I wouldn't have blamed the crew for fragging her as well.

Neelix, Neelix, Neelix... how can you be so utterly useless?

Hey, what's that music playing at the beginning of the video?

Site seems to be down temporarily, so I'm watching it on youtube.

Once again, the wit and candor in these reviews brightens my otherwise dreary existence.

Why couldn't they just kill Neelix?

I always get Trekkie apologists who take issue with the reviews, but this one takes the cake. One guy is seriously suggesting my universal translator observation is wrong because Ocampa speak English.... not that Kes specifically has learned English, but that the Ocampa language is English. Really, that a language that is itself a hodgepodge of Latin, German, and French somehow is also spoken by some aliens on the other side of the galaxy. I just had to share that one, it's too much fun to keep to myself.

Bubble Boy wrote:Hey, what's that music playing at the beginning of the video?

Bonny Portmore by Loreena McKennitt

I love how you're almost hysterical with the absurdity of the situation. Nobody really knows why these things happen... they just do.

Sonnenburg wrote:I always get Trekkie apologists who take issue with the reviews, but this one takes the cake. One guy is seriously suggesting my universal translator observation is wrong because Ocampa speak English.... not that Kes specifically has learned English, but that the Ocampa language is English. Really, that a language that is itself a hodgepodge of Latin, German, and French somehow is also spoken by some aliens on the other side of the galaxy. I just had to share that one, it's too much fun to keep to myself.

Better still, Neelix, who also has had zero reason to learn english prior to Voyager's arrival, also understands Kes, despite the fact that he's a Talaxian.

The only explanation is that Neelix and Kes took the effort to learn Voyager's primary language (english) so they could communicate with everyone without the universal translator.

Of course, Quark and his family lived with Cardassians, Bajorans, and humans, and never bothered to learn any of their languages the entire time. When they went back in time to Roswell, they couldn't understand anything the humans were saying until they fixed the universal translators in their ears.

Sonnenburg wrote:

Bubble Boy wrote:Hey, what's that music playing at the beginning of the video?

Bonny Portmore by Loreena McKennitt

And damn you for putting that music back in my head and associating it with Voyager. I'm going to have to re-watch Highlander a couple of times to try and get rid of any hint of it.

Other than that, the review was very good. As always.

I always get Trekkie apologists who take issue with the reviews, but this one takes the cake. One guy is seriously suggesting my universal translator observation is wrong because Ocampa speak English.... not that Kes specifically has learned English, but that the Ocampa language is English. Really, that a language that is itself a hodgepodge of Latin, German, and French somehow is also spoken by some aliens on the other side of the galaxy. I just had to share that one, it's too much fun to keep to myself.

Can't they even TRY to think of something remotely reasonable, like say Starfleet personnel have UT's implanted into them as standard.

Wow.....

I had simply forgotten how bad Neelix's survival skills were in this episode.

And i think I might have insulted all boy scout dropouts in my assesment of his skills last review. Neelix has the survival skills of a rock or perhaps a table.

That might insulting to your average table.

I always get Trekkie apologists who take issue with the reviews, but this one takes the cake. One guy is seriously suggesting my universal translator observation is wrong because Ocampa speak English.... not that Kes specifically has learned English, but that the Ocampa language is English.

God forbid entertaining the possibility that the writers forgot they wouldn't speak the same language.

Would the episode really have been enhanced if there was a scene where Janeway & Co. spent five minutes trying fruitlessly to communicate with Neelix, and eventually decided that they'd have to ignore him until Voyager came back?

Oh, wait a minute, that probably would have made for a better episode, wouldn't it? Never mind.

Saying that Kes speaks english is absurd. I could however buy that the tiny translators they have in their ears can translate stuff that has already been analysed, but to translate a new language requires the power of the ships computers. However the most likely explaination in reality is that the writers are morons.

Steel wrote:tiny translators they have in their ears

Tell me more.

Stark wrote:

Steel wrote:tiny translators they have in their ears

Tell me more.

The only translators I've ever seen installed in anyone's ears were the ones used by Quark and his family.

Darth Servo wrote:Its actually not surprising at all that Janeway assigned Harry and Neelix as group leaders, given her deplorable track record of assigning completely inappropriate people to other tasks in the past, like you ripped on in State of Flux.

When i saw the music montage i had the feeling you'd finally lost it and Voyager had driven you insane.

Swindle1984 wrote:

Stark wrote:

Steel wrote:tiny translators they have in their ears

Tell me more.

The only translators I've ever seen installed in anyone's ears were the ones used by Quark and his family.

But then it should be noted that an example has been set for a completely valid explanation as to why two different species can understand eachother when all other technology has seemingly been removed (like communicators).

Sonnenburg wrote:I always get Trekkie apologists who take issue with the reviews, but this one takes the cake. One guy is seriously suggesting my universal translator observation is wrong because Ocampa speak English.... not that Kes specifically has learned English, but that the Ocampa language is English. Really, that a language that is itself a hodgepodge of Latin, German, and French somehow is also spoken by some aliens on the other side of the galaxy. I just had to share that one, it's too much fun to keep to myself.

Ha, reminds me of the first Simpson's Halloween Special with Kang and Kodos.

"Hey, how come you guys are speaking English?"

"Oh, actually, you're speaking Rigellian. By sheer coincidence, both languages are exactly the same."

Sonnenburg wrote:I always get Trekkie apologists who take issue with the reviews, but this one takes the cake. One guy is seriously suggesting my universal translator observation is wrong because Ocampa speak English.... not that Kes specifically has learned English, but that the Ocampa language is English. Really, that a language that is itself a hodgepodge of Latin, German, and French somehow is also spoken by some aliens on the other side of the galaxy. I just had to share that one, it's too much fun to keep to myself.

Thats just.... uummmm.... something.

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary. “
- James Nicoll

Stated more eloquently than I ever could.

A slight note I reminded the Trekkies on the youtube page of Spock knowing English as a reminder that Tuvok being understood wasn't so bad. it still does not explain how that both Neelix and Kes can be understood at all without a translator working.

Tuvok is a Vulcan that lives a long time and from a planet that has been a member of the Federation from almost day one. There is no odd reason why he shouldn't be able to speak english.

Neelix is from a planet on the far side of the galaxy and just barely contacted the crew of Voyager not that long ago. If he and Kes learned any of English at all it should be strained or limited rather then fluent.

their answer. Spock speaks english because he's half human.

By that logic because I'm 1/2 Scotch/Irish I should be able to speak Gallic, and being 1/4 Welsh I should also know Welsh.

Isolder74 wrote:their answer. Spock speaks english because he's half human.

More proof of Trek beating into everyone's head the idea that knowledge is based on one's genetics rather than actual learning.

their answer. Spock speaks english because he's half human.

It's not as bad an argument as you think. Spock's mother was a teacher who spoke English, so it's hardly inconceivable that he'd learn to speak it too; children of mixed-language couples are more often than not bilingual.

Unless of course they specifically dragged genetics into their argument.