13:26 I almost spit my drink out when Neelix’s heart felt speech was cut in half because it was detected by RUclips Bots. Me thinks this is unintentional. But the fact that it comes just after Chuck says he will no longer make fun of Neelix is freaking priceless
I have to confess that I find it amusing that it seems like the character of Nelix was specifically created with the express purpose of annoying Chuck. 😉
Neelix was actually written to be as annoying as possible, and they thought this was going to be funny, but it drove away their audience. After season 4, Neelix got pushed to the background and the show massively improved, but overall was still terrible.
@Daniel-mw7pu It's too bad they didn't take him seriously. It's possible to be "quirky" and humorous without being insufferable. Oh, well. Sorry, Chuck. 😉
It's funny you make the brother-in-law comparison because Ethan Philips is the brother-in-law of my high school chemistry teacher. 20-some years ago I wasn't doing well in chemistry and my teacher, Mr. Scramling, told me he could get me some authentic Star Trek memorabilia if I got my grade up. I went from a D to an A and he secured me a signed photo of the entire cast of Voyager.
Another possibility, based on the "brain memories doesn't record the afterlife" theory, is that maybe Neelix's spirit DID pass beyond to the Great Forest to be with his family, and his revived body is essentially a soulless zombie that bases its decision on his brain's memories.
Eh, I don't blame you for how you feel about this episode. Personally, though, I thought it was brilliant putting Neelix through this. Neelix was the one who was always damned sure of who and what he was, that the one he'd most easily tricked into believing he was all the things he claimed to be was himself, and then THIS happens, and EVERYTHING he ever believed is cast into doubt. What's sad is that this could've been the opportunity to give the character a sort of soft-reboot, to have him undergo all this and come out a changed man, keeping his more positive attributes while realizing he needs to change his more negative ones. But...well, that's Voyager for ya.
They could have just added in a line that say Talaxian has a unique physiology that Seven can take advantage to revive him. Seven can even say the Collective use Talaxian drones for specific tasks that would kill regular drones because they can be revived.
Meh even easier, it only can fix that specific cause of death because of the after effects of the energy from the protomatter mumbo jumbo allows the nanites to do hocus pocus. Then Neelix isn't immortal and it can never come up again.
The sad thing is, there's an easy fix for why they never used this process to revive someone ever again: Janeway calls Seven and the Doctor to her office after the incident where Neelix's cells reverted to a state of necrosis and explain that, until such time as they can figure out how to prevent that from happening with a patient again, that she's placing a moratorium on using nanoprobes to revive the dead again.
but but then they could fix tuvok with nanos instead of letting old age drive him crazy in season seven for the end game episodes or seven of nine dying so on and so forth Janeway seems to totally forget about this episode and tech after it's sued on neelix
I blaim the Nelix problem of all the plot points from the pilot episode, that the writers seemed to all of a sudden just toss out the window without much growth. We had Janeway as a newly promoted captain on her first command. We had the Maques who felt betrayed by the federation. Nelix a street smart local who had to get use to working in a crew environment. The bad guy of the week needed to only be the bad guy of the week, because they were on a super fast starship that will be out of their territory quickly, and can't be caught up too. And limited supply and resources, so they can't always teck teck a way out.
You know, I've been told about how nuclear physicists are brilliant in their field but tend to be complete social ineptitude incarnate, to the point where a nuclear physicist didn't propose to his wife until after she asked him when he was going to propose because he had just never thought of it. It's to the point where I've been told that physicists live a brilliant career dealing with things that most people will never understand, and then die of pneumonia because they forget to come in out of the rain. So somebody being a complete idiot socially yet being brilliant with some super complex physics thing or material or whatever actually does make sense to me. That being said, I think neelix' experience with proto matter is seeing it on his scanner and having it explode in his face when he tried to do anything.
My brother designs optical guudence systems for missiles at Lockheed Martin. That's all the proof I need that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist...
@@CarbonSpire I heard that a missile guidance system crashes quickly because of a memory leak. So the developers calculated double the longest possible range and just added extra memory to double the amount of memory needed to not crash at the maximum range.
@@CarbonSpireBen Carson is also living proof of this. He's one of the best brain surgeons in the world and completely clueless about *literally everything else.*
I think a major problem with Voyager was the fact that writers never seemed to actually care what they were writing about and never consider that there should a sense a continuity. They could do things from episode to episode and none of it would matter so long as they met the amount of material needed for the episode and series.
From what I understand, it was Braga (or one of the main directors) who hated having connected episodes or series long storylines. The first season or two had an overarching plotline with the kazon, but from then on the writers were basically told every episode had to be standalone and, essentially, consequence free.
@@peytonmac1131 For any sci fi series that would be madness but for a Star Trek series that sounds beyond stupid. It sounds like Braga was complete moron and I'd like to know how the hell he got his position.
This really does show the contrast with DS9. I think Dax and Jake are probably the worst written on the show and would probably be #3 and #4 behind The Doctor and Seven here. Rom, Nog, Cassidy, Eddington, Dukat, Weyoun, Martok, Moogie, Zek, Damar, Ross, Vic and Joseph Sisko all got more development, growth and consequences. An entire cast worth of non-starring roles...
@@alexyoon-sungcucina7895 I always couldn't stand Jake. He could be a bad friend to Nog and he made some of the most suicidal decisions. He was very lucky that he wasn't taken hostage by Weyoun.
@@peytonmac1131 From what i remember Braga and the others are at least innocent in this case. It was a mandate from the higher ups because the show should be easy accessable for syndication. Ongoing storylines were deemed too hard to understand for casual viewers. Of course that is nonsense and you could easily explain things with a little "previously on"-segment, but TV executives aren't always the brightest people themselves ...
Man I feel so bad for the actor who played Neelix. I'm sure that he's a fine dude and he got stuck with literally one of the worst characters in Star Trek history.
Add Robert Beltram to the pile ... he hated playing Chakotay the way he was written, but he also got a 7-jear-penalty, just like Ethan Phillips (Neelix). Ok and there is also Garret Wang ("Forever Ensign" Kim)
He was an excellent actor handed a really badly written character. He did great in the part, but the part wasn't unlikable little snot who barely knew his posterior from his elbow.
Ethan also had a (small) part in the (EXCELLENT) 1994 flick The Shadow. Mind you, when I first saw it I half expected him to mention Talaxian Spices when he was onscreen! Still, an excellent (and completely underrated) movie.....
Let's not forget Star Trek: Generations, where we see Picard's dream of a perfect Chrismas - after his brother, sister-in-law an nephew died in a fire ...
The strain of his emotional struggle with death would probably mean more if death couldn't be cured on an out patient basis in this show. Heck Harry is on his 3rd or fourth one by now.
Given that Neelix was previously dating a woman who came from a species that grows up super fast, I never liked Neelix hanging around with Naomi Wildman. Her hanging out with Seven of Nine made a lot of sense since Seven never had the chance to be a little girl, and these two could've really connected on that.
Well, it's a bit of a tricky area. By her standards she was a full adult and capable of making her own decisions. Vulcans can live for a couple of hundred years. Does that mean that any Vulcan in a relationship with a human should be viewed as questionable?
I was going to post a heated comment about how you shouldn't shit on Neelix so much and the I realized that if a dog likes to kill chickens, there ain't no way to convince that dog to stop killing chickens
Neelix rules. The only problem was that his storylines of the first seasons were ruined by being interlinked with the Peter Pan Disney elf Kes, and that they never managed to create a relation between Neelix and Seven of Nine like, say, the Doctor. When awful Kes was gone, they made him the kindergarden teacher of Godawful Naomi. Considering what he had to deal with, Ethan Philips did a really good job. Surround the Doctor with annoying children and see what he could have done.
Why are Voyager's takes on religion so bad? I get why Neelix is depressed, but nobody brings up the ideas Chuck mentions (he wasn't dead enough, he isn't allowed to keep these memories etc.)? He could still be suicidal because he is not in a state for logical discussions, but at least mention it! This would be the first thing i would tell someone in this situation, even when i don't share this persons religion. I get why they never used Sevens nanoprobes again: After this terrible experience nobody wanted to use it. And Janeway likely deleted all the data just like after the Omega Molecule-incident + she declared, that any person who speaks about this is sentenced to death. And is anyone surprised that the protomatter-mission went south as soon as Neelix started giving orders? Chakotay should have known better: Neelix' expertise in this field is probably a lie again like his work with space-elevators ...
It's not just Voyager. Star Trek as a franchise has on occasion shown a...disconnect with religion and spirituality. This is a franchise where Kirk fights gods, including the capital G, and yet the Lucifer pastiche Kirk actually defends in court as being misunderstood. (Which has led to my joke about how Kirk does so well because he sold his sold to the devil.) The other stories aren't much better as "deities" are revealed to be aliens or from some other dimension but not actually something worth worshiping. I'm not surprised that a story that involves a crisis of religious faith would be handled poorly by a science fiction franchise that is so pro-atheist because Roddenberry himself didn't believe in God or any other religion.
@@ShadowWingTronix I think with Roddenberry it's different because you know he was an atheist and alsways wanted to show religion as a hoax especially in TOS. I'm agnostic and even i think it is not a good concept. And it's tiresome because it feels like there are over 100 episodes of TOS alone with this storyline. And "Planet of Titans", the first idea for a Star Trek-movie would have been the same thing. Star Trek V is the exeption, because i think Roddenberry was less involved and even hated the story (even if it seems to be something that could have been written by him). No, my problem with Voyager is different: they tried to be more open to religion, but the way they did it was half baked like everything on the show. It's not only this episode but also the one where Janeway tries to get a medical treatment for Kes by following a religious ritual. And of course everything that has to do with Chakotay - like Chuck said, all that was missing was Chakotay beginning to talk about the Great Manitou - thank God if he exists that they never went there ...
@@lordmontymord8701 There's a strange perspective with current writers who can't tell the difference between religion and culture because they have such a weak understanding, if at all, of spirituality in general. It makes for all kinds of confusion, some of which actually comes off as insulting to other cultures and those of faiths other than Christianity, which they outright oppose. That's if they aren't part of the mindset that thinks religion period is the cause of everyone's problems, which then makes their attempts at translating spiritual things as "just their culture" even more insulting or just downright laughable.
I think Red Green expressed passage of time with a tiresome individual best: "You know how one year of a human's life is like seven years of a dog's life? Well one hour with Neelix is like seven years of a dog's life."
Nelix: "I was dead for 18 hours!" Khan: "Cry me a river. I was dead for 180 years!" The idea that someone can have no lung, heart, or brain activity for an arbitrary period of time, and then get better afterwards, really shouldn't be a new idea for any space faring species in Star Trek. It's not a new idea to *us*, since we've seen it happen in rare accidents. So it's really stupid for the entire crew to talk about life and death the way they do.
I'd have scored the episode rather low for trivializing basically everything on display; personal bias against Neelix be damned. This isn't the first time Star Trek has tackled a character suffering through depression, contemplation of suicide or even a crisis of faith or even trying to do so and having the whole spiel wrapped up before next week's episode, never to be mentioned again. And yet, I'm once again reminded of how Deep Space 9 did a far better job handling these issues with Nog scarcely more than a couple years prior to when this episode first aired. It's remarkable how fast Rick Bermann lowered the standard of Trek just going between those two shows until finally killing Trek until its reboot. ...Although seeing how nu-Trek turned out, I don't think anyone up top in Paramount or CBS learned the important lessons.
Anyone remember which episode it was where Neelix walks into a room, someone greets him pleasantly like they're happy to see him, and he pauses for a beat, as if he's confused, and just says his line like nothing happened? I remember Chuck calling it out like it was a rare moment of the show being self-aware how ridiculous it was that anyone could actually like him.
This episode to me at least does bring up some fascinating concepts that I feel don't get explored enough in science fiction. It's just a shame that it went to the character who had already blown his chance to endeavor himself to the audience so having him confront mortality and the idea of life after death is naturally not gonna land with alot of people. But the worst part is none of this comes up again. I feel there's a goldmine of stories to be told there with someone who has come back from death forever changed by the experience even if it's Neelix.
The worst thing about this episode for me was always that, in my opinion at least, it could have all been solved with a simple conversation with any of the arguments you mention.
And to think, the studio thought NEELIX was the breakout character everyone would love love. Ethan Phillips is a good actor (and as far as I know a good person), but Neelix is mostly irremediable boil on the Voyager crew. He has his moments, but they are far too few.
Dude, the first time you see a dog or cat do the dishes you're freaked out. The second tie you're bewildered. The THIRD TIME you're left wondering why they don't do the dishes all the time.
I guess if you consider the idea of a spirit existing, the experience of the spirit without the body would mean that your brain would not be able to record or recollect anything that happened in the afterlife (probably adds to the idea that you will want for nothing as all your wants are just chemical impulses from your brain) so Nelix not remembering anything is normal because you can't remember something if it's off the record.
You know I never really realized this until re-watching this review but... i really hate the "talaxian spices" thing, like what does that mean? does he just have like a ton of crates of those spices? does he just make things that are similar to those spices? its never even said what kind of spices they are let alone why he puts it on like just fruits and vegetables. Just annoying to hear him say "oh I added spices" every other episode.
This is the second worst "character dies" episode of Voyager. The first, of course, being the one where an alien tries to convince her she's dead so it can eat her soul or whatever. Foolish alien, that soul already belongs to Satan.
Irony is... I like Neelix from about the time Kes leaves onwards. This episode, though... Hoo boy. Him fucking with the spices for Seven is fucked up. Dumping that much heat on someone who isn't used to it is a recipe for bad things. I've had asthma attacks triggered by well-meaning family members trying to 'expand my palate' without checking first.
The love child of Alice from the Brady Bunch, and Hoggle from Labyrinth. I actually don't hate Neelix, though. For many of us, the Voyager crew have very much been a vicarious family.
Seems like they didn't deal with the fact that a character attempted suicide with the gravity that such an act deserves. Which I guess is about par for Voyager.
18 hours may be pushing the limits of bra technology but it sure as hell ain't pushing the limits of deodorant technology - I can buy deodorants that claim to last up to 48 hours.
You crap on Chakotay's tree-like personality a lot, but you've got to admire his willingness to risk his own life just to bring Neelix as close as practical to an extremely dangerous, unstable form of matter. 14:59 Finally, an outfit specifically designed to emphasize your gut! This whole "am religion real?" thing just doesn't work very well in Star Trek. Good news, Voltaire, it's not necessary to invent gods anymore, because we meet one every other week. I mean, is Q not good enough for you? Not quite omnipotent enough? Well, okay. Maybe he's a bit too Old Testament for modern tastes. Maybe something a bit more New Age? How about the Prophets? Omnipotent, omniscient, good, bad, neutral, indifferent, meddling, relatable, incomprehensible, we've got all possible flavors! We've got so many we keep tripping over them!
Yeah, when some new guy comes around in Trek and says "i'm your new god!" you can start asking him if he's mightier than Q or any of the 5000 other nigh omnipotent people we have seen ... Same goes for alien manipulation. I always like it when someone behaves weird and nobody brings up an alien influence immediately - it happens so often, it should be as possible as real psychological problems ...
If we are going to have a god, the idea of direct access, and having to personally negotiate with it seems like a step up from the sky-daddy/imaginary parent concept
My own perspective on the Afterlife is that it is something which exists in complete defiance of logic, but that that in itself the entire point; to see whether or not we're able to let go of our own insistence that everything has to make sense according to our own preconceptions. I would interpret Neelix not remembering anything here, as being due to a similar scenario as what Cypher said about the screens in the Matrix, not being able to visually interpret it because there was too much information. Physical existence is a lot more limited and linear; where we go afterwards is a place which our physical brains simply were not designed to be able to process, and the sheer amount of information is overwhelming, so it just registers as blackness. I am expecting that I will probably receive expressions of contempt from atheists in response to the above, as well, and will simply brace for them.
Not contempt, just lack of understanding. There's no proof - and as you say - it defies logic, so how can you believe it? It's a nice story, but I can't see any view of the afterlife being more than just hope, really.
It's sometimes hard to tell if the joke is a dramatization for comedy or if Chuck is actually that unlucky to have had that exact type of brother-in-law. This episode actually is a good episode, even with it focusing on the least tolerable character of a crew.
Neelix and Jar-Jar, both are painful reminder that you don't make comic relief characters in a serious sci-fi movie or show. That is where you learn the lesson to either make everyone funny or none of them funny ya smegheads.
I think the lesson is more that bad writing makes a comic relief character insufferable. A comic relief character can work even in a very dark and serious work if the writing is good and the tone is right (which in that case would likely mean gallows humor). Shakespeare put comic relief in his tragedies and the most iconic (not including the dinosaurs) and most quoted character from Jurassic Park is the one that serves as comic relief. Of course, Ian Malcom was both the voice of reason and the comic relief but I think that's why it works, because the person who sees the absurdity of it all is, well, the one who sees the absurdity of it all.
I geniunely dont understand why ya'll abhor the character too much. Sure he is not the best character and sometimes is annoying, But ya'll treating him as if he's Adolf Stalin.
He almost gets people or the ship compromised if not dead a lot. He also needs body parts from others like kes and seven. He even destroyed tuvoks quarters by banging a klingon. He is the Jerry to Tom Paris' Rick.
@@draximo9036 He is the character that *least* got the ship into danger. Its usually Janeway, Paris or Kes that endangers the ship. Neelix just tags along. He doesnt need body parts from Kes or Seven wtf? Kes almost destroyed the ship twice, once *on purpose.* Paris almost started a war with an alien civilization, twice. We have Voyager as long as it goes because of Janeway. 70% of episodes are because of Janeway. The only time Neelix put the ship in danger was when he met up his old friend to illegally buy the star charts of a region that he's never been to before. Even then, the ship nor the crew werent in danger as the starbase command only wanted Neelix to be punished. I can understand you guys not liking his character or the actor, but you are acting like this guy is Gul Dukat. He's not.
Said it before, saying it again - Voyager was BORING (much like a typical John Wayne movie was/is CRAP, despite a bunch of die hard (American) fans believing he's akin to GOD!). So, some character-or-other decides to jump off the proverbial twig - SO WHAT?
"Boringer" is what some one I knew called it. It does have the most amount of boring episodes of all Trek, but every Trek series has their share. I can't even remember half of Enterprise's first two seasons. And Deep Space Nine's first season can be pared down to about 5 or 6 episodes and the series loses nothing. Wayne had some okay movies, but I've never been a fan of him. I think that's more of a generational thing.
@@scockery Aye. TOS had 5 or 6 fantastic episodes, the rest ranged from dire to ho-hum. TNT had appallingly bad episodes plus a few which remain excellent. DS9 was just crap, albeit also with 1 or 2 excellent episodes (the MAD Magazine spoof was terrific - Constable Oddball morphing into a barstool and/or door handle any time Dax was nearby!). Voyager just annoyed me (Captain Gratingvoice in particular. Plus I kept hoping for the episode where Torres gets "accidentally" ejected instead of the warp core). Enterprise reinforced my belief that Star Trek fatigue had set in - just let it go! Simply sit back on occasion and enjoy The Doomsday Machine, The Ultimate Computer, Yesterdays Enterprise, The Best of Both Worlds, Trials and Tribble-ations, Wrath and Khan and STVI: The Undiscovered Country. I still reckon Babylon 5 is the best series ever but yes, even that has a few duds. After all, "Even Dr. Who can't fix the TARDIS".
Neelix: * blinks *
Chuck: *O K F I R S T O F A L L*
13:26 I almost spit my drink out when Neelix’s heart felt speech was cut in half because it was detected by RUclips Bots. Me thinks this is unintentional. But the fact that it comes just after Chuck says he will no longer make fun of Neelix is freaking priceless
I have to confess that I find it amusing that it seems like the character of Nelix was specifically created with the express purpose of annoying Chuck. 😉
So Neelix is the (official) Jar Jar Binks of Voyager? Hmmmmmm..... makes sense.
Jar Jar Neelix?
Neelix was actually written to be as annoying as possible, and they thought this was going to be funny, but it drove away their audience. After season 4, Neelix got pushed to the background and the show massively improved, but overall was still terrible.
@Daniel-mw7pu It's too bad they didn't take him seriously. It's possible to be "quirky" and humorous without being insufferable. Oh, well. Sorry, Chuck. 😉
It's funny you make the brother-in-law comparison because Ethan Philips is the brother-in-law of my high school chemistry teacher.
20-some years ago I wasn't doing well in chemistry and my teacher, Mr. Scramling, told me he could get me some authentic Star Trek memorabilia if I got my grade up. I went from a D to an A and he secured me a signed photo of the entire cast of Voyager.
It's strange when you know someone who is related to someone famous. One of my old doctors was related to figure skater Dorothy Hamill.
I love this story so much
Probably seeing the all-seeing koala and the black mountain was too traumatic for him to remember...
Given how many ways there are to come back from the dead, there may also be many different post-death trials.
The smile of a Koala, who knows what´s behind the Black Mountain!
Relmiob darb, emit ruoy ton s'ti.
I like this specific quote from Neelix's vision:
Seven of Nine: "You will be assimilated."
Neelix: "No time for that now, maybe later."
The slow burn on that brother-in-law joke.
they can save the hedgehog and not joe Carey that's the weird one right there🤣
Another possibility, based on the "brain memories doesn't record the afterlife" theory, is that maybe Neelix's spirit DID pass beyond to the Great Forest to be with his family, and his revived body is essentially a soulless zombie that bases its decision on his brain's memories.
Most would call that "life" lol.
I mean he didn't see the Great Koala.
I'm of the opinion the body cant live without the soul, i would say its needed for conciseness, but i am pulling that out of my ass
Eh, I don't blame you for how you feel about this episode. Personally, though, I thought it was brilliant putting Neelix through this. Neelix was the one who was always damned sure of who and what he was, that the one he'd most easily tricked into believing he was all the things he claimed to be was himself, and then THIS happens, and EVERYTHING he ever believed is cast into doubt. What's sad is that this could've been the opportunity to give the character a sort of soft-reboot, to have him undergo all this and come out a changed man, keeping his more positive attributes while realizing he needs to change his more negative ones. But...well, that's Voyager for ya.
They could have just added in a line that say Talaxian has a unique physiology that Seven can take advantage to revive him. Seven can even say the Collective use Talaxian drones for specific tasks that would kill regular drones because they can be revived.
Meh even easier, it only can fix that specific cause of death because of the after effects of the energy from the protomatter mumbo jumbo allows the nanites to do hocus pocus. Then Neelix isn't immortal and it can never come up again.
@@kommodore979 Ooooo. That's even better!
The timing of having a 'Yes Minister' sketch at the start, today of all days!
It was real close to November 5 i will give it that....
The sad thing is, there's an easy fix for why they never used this process to revive someone ever again: Janeway calls Seven and the Doctor to her office after the incident where Neelix's cells reverted to a state of necrosis and explain that, until such time as they can figure out how to prevent that from happening with a patient again, that she's placing a moratorium on using nanoprobes to revive the dead again.
I mean, better that than be dead.
but but then they could fix tuvok with nanos instead of letting old age drive him crazy in season seven for the end game episodes or seven of nine dying so on and so forth Janeway seems to totally forget about this episode and tech after it's sued on neelix
I blaim the Nelix problem of all the plot points from the pilot episode, that the writers seemed to all of a sudden just toss out the window without much growth. We had Janeway as a newly promoted captain on her first command. We had the Maques who felt betrayed by the federation. Nelix a street smart local who had to get use to working in a crew environment. The bad guy of the week needed to only be the bad guy of the week, because they were on a super fast starship that will be out of their territory quickly, and can't be caught up too. And limited supply and resources, so they can't always teck teck a way out.
bring Nelix back from the dead oh my god nnnooooooo🤣
You know, I've been told about how nuclear physicists are brilliant in their field but tend to be complete social ineptitude incarnate, to the point where a nuclear physicist didn't propose to his wife until after she asked him when he was going to propose because he had just never thought of it.
It's to the point where I've been told that physicists live a brilliant career dealing with things that most people will never understand, and then die of pneumonia because they forget to come in out of the rain.
So somebody being a complete idiot socially yet being brilliant with some super complex physics thing or material or whatever actually does make sense to me.
That being said, I think neelix' experience with proto matter is seeing it on his scanner and having it explode in his face when he tried to do anything.
Or him trying to cook a steak with it.
My brother designs optical guudence systems for missiles at Lockheed Martin. That's all the proof I need that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist...
@@CarbonSpire I heard that a missile guidance system crashes quickly because of a memory leak.
So the developers calculated double the longest possible range and just added extra memory to double the amount of memory needed to not crash at the maximum range.
@@CarbonSpireBen Carson is also living proof of this. He's one of the best brain surgeons in the world and completely clueless about *literally everything else.*
The thumbnail and that clip at the beginning explains everything; the rest of the video is just filling out details.
I think a major problem with Voyager was the fact that writers never seemed to actually care what they were writing about and never consider that there should a sense a continuity. They could do things from episode to episode and none of it would matter so long as they met the amount of material needed for the episode and series.
From what I understand, it was Braga (or one of the main directors) who hated having connected episodes or series long storylines. The first season or two had an overarching plotline with the kazon, but from then on the writers were basically told every episode had to be standalone and, essentially, consequence free.
@@peytonmac1131 For any sci fi series that would be madness but for a Star Trek series that sounds beyond stupid. It sounds like Braga was complete moron and I'd like to know how the hell he got his position.
This really does show the contrast with DS9. I think Dax and Jake are probably the worst written on the show and would probably be #3 and #4 behind The Doctor and Seven here.
Rom, Nog, Cassidy, Eddington, Dukat, Weyoun, Martok, Moogie, Zek, Damar, Ross, Vic and Joseph Sisko all got more development, growth and consequences.
An entire cast worth of non-starring roles...
@@alexyoon-sungcucina7895 I always couldn't stand Jake. He could be a bad friend to Nog and he made some of the most suicidal decisions. He was very lucky that he wasn't taken hostage by Weyoun.
@@peytonmac1131 From what i remember Braga and the others are at least innocent in this case. It was a mandate from the higher ups because the show should be easy accessable for syndication.
Ongoing storylines were deemed too hard to understand for casual viewers.
Of course that is nonsense and you could easily explain things with a little "previously on"-segment, but TV executives aren't always the brightest people themselves ...
Man I feel so bad for the actor who played Neelix. I'm sure that he's a fine dude and he got stuck with literally one of the worst characters in Star Trek history.
Add Robert Beltram to the pile ... he hated playing Chakotay the way he was written, but he also got a 7-jear-penalty, just like Ethan Phillips (Neelix). Ok and there is also Garret Wang ("Forever Ensign" Kim)
Yeah but he played a ferengi in TNG and also in enterprise, so it weren't all bad for him!!
He was an excellent actor handed a really badly written character.
He did great in the part, but the part wasn't unlikable little snot who barely knew his posterior from his elbow.
Maybe they could bring back Neelix in Prodigy and actually redeem him.
Ethan also had a (small) part in the (EXCELLENT) 1994 flick The Shadow. Mind you, when I first saw it I half expected him to mention Talaxian Spices when he was onscreen! Still, an excellent (and completely underrated) movie.....
An edition, submitted for your approval:
"TOO GOOD FOR 'IM, I SAY!!!"
I think it's darkly funny this is the closest Star Trek has to a Christmas episode.
Let's not forget Star Trek: Generations, where we see Picard's dream of a perfect Chrismas - after his brother, sister-in-law an nephew died in a fire ...
Voyager is literally a Christmas tree ornament in that early Q episode.
The strain of his emotional struggle with death would probably mean more if death couldn't be cured on an out patient basis in this show. Heck Harry is on his 3rd or fourth one by now.
Janeway keeps a set of Dragon Balls in a cupboard, right next to Harry's
@@Lemon_Inspector As if Janeway would let her butt monkey off so easily.
But who would win in a fight? Danny DeVito as the Trashman or Neelix the Junkman?
Oh, the Bash in the Trash!
Danny DeVito, hands down. No contest
Danny DeVito as Oswald Cobblepot?
@@daveroche6522 Danny DeVito in any of his roles
Given that Neelix was previously dating a woman who came from a species that grows up super fast, I never liked Neelix hanging around with Naomi Wildman. Her hanging out with Seven of Nine made a lot of sense since Seven never had the chance to be a little girl, and these two could've really connected on that.
oh no
Neelix's favorite Starfleet historical figure was Commander Decker.
Neelix probably heard that Naomi was also growing up really fast and was disappointed that it took way longer than Kes ...
@@KasumiKenshirou Does that mean Neelix thought he'd go to 7th Heaven?
Well, it's a bit of a tricky area. By her standards she was a full adult and capable of making her own decisions. Vulcans can live for a couple of hundred years. Does that mean that any Vulcan in a relationship with a human should be viewed as questionable?
..... It is so incredibly odd to go onto a Voyager review and see Yes, Prime Minister as the intro....
surprising but wonderful! can’t miss with YPM
I was going to post a heated comment about how you shouldn't shit on Neelix so much and the I realized that if a dog likes to kill chickens, there ain't no way to convince that dog to stop killing chickens
We need more yes Minister intro
Neelix rules. The only problem was that his storylines of the first seasons were ruined by being interlinked with the Peter Pan Disney elf Kes, and that they never managed to create a relation between Neelix and Seven of Nine like, say, the Doctor. When awful Kes was gone, they made him the kindergarden teacher of Godawful Naomi. Considering what he had to deal with, Ethan Philips did a really good job. Surround the Doctor with annoying children and see what he could have done.
I was so happy when Kez finally got offed 😂
Why are Voyager's takes on religion so bad? I get why Neelix is depressed, but nobody brings up the ideas Chuck mentions (he wasn't dead enough, he isn't allowed to keep these memories etc.)? He could still be suicidal because he is not in a state for logical discussions, but at least mention it!
This would be the first thing i would tell someone in this situation, even when i don't share this persons religion.
I get why they never used Sevens nanoprobes again: After this terrible experience nobody wanted to use it. And Janeway likely deleted all the data just like after the Omega Molecule-incident + she declared, that any person who speaks about this is sentenced to death.
And is anyone surprised that the protomatter-mission went south as soon as Neelix started giving orders? Chakotay should have known better: Neelix' expertise in this field is probably a lie again like his work with space-elevators ...
It's not just Voyager. Star Trek as a franchise has on occasion shown a...disconnect with religion and spirituality. This is a franchise where Kirk fights gods, including the capital G, and yet the Lucifer pastiche Kirk actually defends in court as being misunderstood. (Which has led to my joke about how Kirk does so well because he sold his sold to the devil.) The other stories aren't much better as "deities" are revealed to be aliens or from some other dimension but not actually something worth worshiping. I'm not surprised that a story that involves a crisis of religious faith would be handled poorly by a science fiction franchise that is so pro-atheist because Roddenberry himself didn't believe in God or any other religion.
@@ShadowWingTronix I think with Roddenberry it's different because you know he was an atheist and alsways wanted to show religion as a hoax especially in TOS.
I'm agnostic and even i think it is not a good concept. And it's tiresome because it feels like there are over 100 episodes of TOS alone with this storyline. And "Planet of Titans", the first idea for a Star Trek-movie would have been the same thing.
Star Trek V is the exeption, because i think Roddenberry was less involved and even hated the story (even if it seems to be something that could have been written by him).
No, my problem with Voyager is different: they tried to be more open to religion, but the way they did it was half baked like everything on the show. It's not only this episode but also the one where Janeway tries to get a medical treatment for Kes by following a religious ritual.
And of course everything that has to do with Chakotay - like Chuck said, all that was missing was Chakotay beginning to talk about the Great Manitou - thank God if he exists that they never went there ...
@@lordmontymord8701 There's a strange perspective with current writers who can't tell the difference between religion and culture because they have such a weak understanding, if at all, of spirituality in general. It makes for all kinds of confusion, some of which actually comes off as insulting to other cultures and those of faiths other than Christianity, which they outright oppose.
That's if they aren't part of the mindset that thinks religion period is the cause of everyone's problems, which then makes their attempts at translating spiritual things as "just their culture" even more insulting or just downright laughable.
DS9 handled the concept very well. @@ShadowWingTronix
"I'm afraid..........." "....I know......."
You know, I'm beginning to get the impression that you don't much care for Neelix
I think Red Green expressed passage of time with a tiresome individual best: "You know how one year of a human's life is like seven years of a dog's life? Well one hour with Neelix is like seven years of a dog's life."
Nelix: "I was dead for 18 hours!"
Khan: "Cry me a river. I was dead for 180 years!"
The idea that someone can have no lung, heart, or brain activity for an arbitrary period of time, and then get better afterwards, really shouldn't be a new idea for any space faring species in Star Trek. It's not a new idea to *us*, since we've seen it happen in rare accidents. So it's really stupid for the entire crew to talk about life and death the way they do.
The first 4 minutes genuinely made me think that it was a setup for an "it was all a dream" twist
I'd have scored the episode rather low for trivializing basically everything on display; personal bias against Neelix be damned. This isn't the first time Star Trek has tackled a character suffering through depression, contemplation of suicide or even a crisis of faith or even trying to do so and having the whole spiel wrapped up before next week's episode, never to be mentioned again.
And yet, I'm once again reminded of how Deep Space 9 did a far better job handling these issues with Nog scarcely more than a couple years prior to when this episode first aired. It's remarkable how fast Rick Bermann lowered the standard of Trek just going between those two shows until finally killing Trek until its reboot.
...Although seeing how nu-Trek turned out, I don't think anyone up top in Paramount or CBS learned the important lessons.
This episode works better if Chatokay was trying to kill Neelix from the beginning. And who can blame him?
"Pom farr YOU, Mr. Vulcan"
"Talaxian spices YOU, Mr. Neelix".
I liked to think that Neelix’s family left the great forest before he got there because they couldn’t stand him either.
As opposed to all of those godly immortal coils, wrapped around their magic Uru thunder hammers and wearing their winged helms and capes.
Anyone remember which episode it was where Neelix walks into a room, someone greets him pleasantly like they're happy to see him, and he pauses for a beat, as if he's confused, and just says his line like nothing happened? I remember Chuck calling it out like it was a rare moment of the show being self-aware how ridiculous it was that anyone could actually like him.
That was Once Upon a Time. Hope to see that one up here soon.
This is the one episode of Trek I’ve avoided. Not for Neelix, just the subject matter
This episode to me at least does bring up some fascinating concepts that I feel don't get explored enough in science fiction. It's just a shame that it went to the character who had already blown his chance to endeavor himself to the audience so having him confront mortality and the idea of life after death is naturally not gonna land with alot of people.
But the worst part is none of this comes up again. I feel there's a goldmine of stories to be told there with someone who has come back from death forever changed by the experience even if it's Neelix.
I love that someone else has seen yes prime minister
The worst thing about this episode for me was always that, in my opinion at least, it could have all been solved with a simple conversation with any of the arguments you mention.
OK, I'll rank it for you. Two out of ten
I always liked Neelix, never understood the vitriol.
Yay Neelix dies!!!
what do you mean he comes back I turn the episode off in celebration and never watch another episode after this point out of joy
And to think, the studio thought NEELIX was the breakout character everyone would love love.
Ethan Phillips is a good actor (and as far as I know a good person), but Neelix is mostly irremediable boil on the Voyager crew. He has his moments, but they are far too few.
I liked him on Benson as Pete Downey, the slobbish PR man.
Dude, the first time you see a dog or cat do the dishes you're freaked out. The second tie you're bewildered. The THIRD TIME you're left wondering why they don't do the dishes all the time.
Dude, just using a telescope 150 years ago was only done by geniuses. Atomic theory is taught in junior high school now.
The Great Koala rejected Neelix.
Its funny how not even the captain can override lockouts on the captains own computer system..lol
I guess if you consider the idea of a spirit existing, the experience of the spirit without the body would mean that your brain would not be able to record or recollect anything that happened in the afterlife (probably adds to the idea that you will want for nothing as all your wants are just chemical impulses from your brain) so Nelix not remembering anything is normal because you can't remember something if it's off the record.
Joe Kerry was a week from going back to his family. Thanks 7.
Was there any resolution to neelix and the afterlife, or does he just get over it, voyager style?
The episode leaves his recovery open to interpretation, but his faith is never mentioned again throughout the series.
Well if you know anything about Voyager you know what to expect. Continuity is a mistake we don't make around here ...
7 is a necromancer behold !!! ... and we will never use that again >.
Points for acknowledging your bias in not being able to score rather than just doing it out of spite.
You know I never really realized this until re-watching this review but... i really hate the "talaxian spices" thing, like what does that mean? does he just have like a ton of crates of those spices? does he just make things that are similar to those spices? its never even said what kind of spices they are let alone why he puts it on like just fruits and vegetables. Just annoying to hear him say "oh I added spices" every other episode.
This is the second worst "character dies" episode of Voyager. The first, of course, being the one where an alien tries to convince her she's dead so it can eat her soul or whatever.
Foolish alien, that soul already belongs to Satan.
Neelix isn’t as bad as people make him out to be.
Irony is... I like Neelix from about the time Kes leaves onwards. This episode, though... Hoo boy.
Him fucking with the spices for Seven is fucked up. Dumping that much heat on someone who isn't used to it is a recipe for bad things. I've had asthma attacks triggered by well-meaning family members trying to 'expand my palate' without checking first.
Yes Minister Chuck? You really shouldn't have 😋😋
The love child of Alice from the Brady Bunch, and Hoggle from Labyrinth.
I actually don't hate Neelix, though. For many of us, the Voyager crew have very much been a vicarious family.
How did I go all my life not knowing about you guys????
In all fairness Neelix wearing a hairnet, wouldn't be useful he'd need a body net
Seems like they didn't deal with the fact that a character attempted suicide with the gravity that such an act deserves. Which I guess is about par for Voyager.
I wouldn't wish 24 years with neelix on my worst enemy
18 hours may be pushing the limits of bra technology but it sure as hell ain't pushing the limits of deodorant technology - I can buy deodorants that claim to last up to 48 hours.
Neelix is better in Star Trek online
STO fixes the temerial cold war...and has Rene and Aaron reprising the roles before the died
All hail chuck
I’ve got a feeling that you despise Neelix.
But I could be wrong.
There ther Chuck. Your time with voyager is almost done save for reuploads.
The answer is, of course, that the Great Koala turned his back on Neelix and didn't let him ascend the Black Mountain.
Got to just say I love Paul Eddington's acting in that opening scene!
This review should have started with "Stupid Nelix moment is...."
I want Star Trek: Prodigy to bring back Neelix and do him justice.
Is Neelix 1 half Thunder Cat cat? That would be awesome.
its interesting seeing the views of nelix between SF debris and lorerunner
you do this since 1998? man, TNG season 1 sure has more episodes than i thought
He made a point once that TNG season 1 has so many episodes, it never seems to end ...
You crap on Chakotay's tree-like personality a lot, but you've got to admire his willingness to risk his own life just to bring Neelix as close as practical to an extremely dangerous, unstable form of matter.
14:59 Finally, an outfit specifically designed to emphasize your gut!
This whole "am religion real?" thing just doesn't work very well in Star Trek. Good news, Voltaire, it's not necessary to invent gods anymore, because we meet one every other week.
I mean, is Q not good enough for you? Not quite omnipotent enough? Well, okay. Maybe he's a bit too Old Testament for modern tastes. Maybe something a bit more New Age? How about the Prophets? Omnipotent, omniscient, good, bad, neutral, indifferent, meddling, relatable, incomprehensible, we've got all possible flavors! We've got so many we keep tripping over them!
Yeah, when some new guy comes around in Trek and says "i'm your new god!" you can start asking him if he's mightier than Q or any of the 5000 other nigh omnipotent people we have seen ...
Same goes for alien manipulation. I always like it when someone behaves weird and nobody brings up an alien influence immediately - it happens so often, it should be as possible as real psychological problems ...
If we are going to have a god, the idea of direct access, and having to personally negotiate with it seems like a step up from the sky-daddy/imaginary parent concept
12:10 Ah, so you've seen "As Good As It Gets" have you? I doubt most other would have spotted you "borrowing" that.
I watched Voyager in real time when it first aired and I hated Neelix from the start back then. I wish they had killed him off and kept Kes.
Tell us how you really feel.. 😄
15:45 Yep, that's me in a social gathering.
My own perspective on the Afterlife is that it is something which exists in complete defiance of logic, but that that in itself the entire point; to see whether or not we're able to let go of our own insistence that everything has to make sense according to our own preconceptions.
I would interpret Neelix not remembering anything here, as being due to a similar scenario as what Cypher said about the screens in the Matrix, not being able to visually interpret it because there was too much information. Physical existence is a lot more limited and linear; where we go afterwards is a place which our physical brains simply were not designed to be able to process, and the sheer amount of information is overwhelming, so it just registers as blackness.
I am expecting that I will probably receive expressions of contempt from atheists in response to the above, as well, and will simply brace for them.
Not contempt, just lack of understanding. There's no proof - and as you say - it defies logic, so how can you believe it? It's a nice story, but I can't see any view of the afterlife being more than just hope, really.
What's the clip at the start from?
That example is far too specific chuck
It's sometimes hard to tell if the joke is a dramatization for comedy or if Chuck is actually that unlucky to have had that exact type of brother-in-law.
This episode actually is a good episode, even with it focusing on the least tolerable character of a crew.
Neelix and Jar-Jar, both are painful reminder that you don't make comic relief characters in a serious sci-fi movie or show. That is where you learn the lesson to either make everyone funny or none of them funny ya smegheads.
I think the lesson is more that bad writing makes a comic relief character insufferable. A comic relief character can work even in a very dark and serious work if the writing is good and the tone is right (which in that case would likely mean gallows humor). Shakespeare put comic relief in his tragedies and the most iconic (not including the dinosaurs) and most quoted character from Jurassic Park is the one that serves as comic relief. Of course, Ian Malcom was both the voice of reason and the comic relief but I think that's why it works, because the person who sees the absurdity of it all is, well, the one who sees the absurdity of it all.
15:45 >.> ...
Did that story with your brother-in-law in the synagogue really happen?😂
Who invited him to the synagogue?
Sorry, I'm one of those who liked Neelix. He added character contrast.
Man you really, *REALLY* hate Neelix.
There was nothing wrong with episode. Bar humbug.
I geniunely dont understand why ya'll abhor the character too much. Sure he is not the best character and sometimes is annoying, But ya'll treating him as if he's Adolf Stalin.
He almost gets people or the ship compromised if not dead a lot. He also needs body parts from others like kes and seven. He even destroyed tuvoks quarters by banging a klingon. He is the Jerry to Tom Paris' Rick.
@@draximo9036 He is the character that *least* got the ship into danger. Its usually Janeway, Paris or Kes that endangers the ship. Neelix just tags along.
He doesnt need body parts from Kes or Seven wtf?
Kes almost destroyed the ship twice, once *on purpose.*
Paris almost started a war with an alien civilization, twice.
We have Voyager as long as it goes because of Janeway. 70% of episodes are because of Janeway.
The only time Neelix put the ship in danger was when he met up his old friend to illegally buy the star charts of a region that he's never been to before.
Even then, the ship nor the crew werent in danger as the starbase command only wanted Neelix to be punished.
I can understand you guys not liking his character or the actor, but you are acting like this guy is Gul Dukat. He's not.
Neelix is the Junker of Star Trek .
11:11 😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹
No seriously tell us how you really feel about Neelix LOL
The hedgehog should have stayed dead. Thanks SF.
Said it before, saying it again - Voyager was BORING (much like a typical John Wayne movie was/is CRAP, despite a bunch of die hard (American) fans believing he's akin to GOD!). So, some character-or-other decides to jump off the proverbial twig - SO WHAT?
"Boringer" is what some one I knew called it. It does have the most amount of boring episodes of all Trek, but every Trek series has their share. I can't even remember half of Enterprise's first two seasons. And Deep Space Nine's first season can be pared down to about 5 or 6 episodes and the series loses nothing.
Wayne had some okay movies, but I've never been a fan of him. I think that's more of a generational thing.
@@scockery Aye. TOS had 5 or 6 fantastic episodes, the rest ranged from dire to ho-hum. TNT had appallingly bad episodes plus a few which remain excellent. DS9 was just crap, albeit also with 1 or 2 excellent episodes (the MAD Magazine spoof was terrific - Constable Oddball morphing into a barstool and/or door handle any time Dax was nearby!). Voyager just annoyed me (Captain Gratingvoice in particular. Plus I kept hoping for the episode where Torres gets "accidentally" ejected instead of the warp core). Enterprise reinforced my belief that Star Trek fatigue had set in - just let it go! Simply sit back on occasion and enjoy The Doomsday Machine, The Ultimate Computer, Yesterdays Enterprise, The Best of Both Worlds, Trials and Tribble-ations, Wrath and Khan and STVI: The Undiscovered Country. I still reckon Babylon 5 is the best series ever but yes, even that has a few duds. After all, "Even Dr. Who can't fix the TARDIS".
I can find plenty of boring episodes in DS9 and TNG. I’m actually enjoying pre scorpion episodes of Voyager now as I’ve watched them less.
Every time Nelix talks, Chuck punches a wall.
Palpatine is the first scene nice