A Look at Living Witness (Voyager)
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2022
- Opinionated Voyager Episode Guide looks at an episode where Janeway is a violent heartless killer, Chakotay talks endlessly about his people, and Tom and Neelix aren't getting along. The surprise twist: this is actually a simulation and not a regular episode, you can tell by the gloves.
I like to think in the mirror universe version of this episode, the vaskin/kyrian(sp?) situation played out much the same, but their reconstruction of events 700 years ago looks more like the prime universe actual events... then they find and reactivate the doctor, who goes on a killing spree, taking them all by surprise because they thought the crew of Voyager were mostly peaceful explorers.
The funny thing is, when the I.S.S. Voyager was introduced in Star Trek Online, it used the Warship Voyager model with Terran markings, and Marshall Janeway is said to have pirated her way through the Delta quadrant after getting zapped there.
nice fanfiction!
@@Lans32485 There's also a book series taking place in a copy of the Mirror Universe where the Terrain Empire never fell. Kes became Empress.
@@vukodlak3962 Wesley crusher is currently the Terran emperor in Star Trek online
@@starleigh6680 Truly the darkest timeline that one.
Writers: Let's have Janeway act like a monster to shock viewers
Viewers: Janeway is perfect in this episode!
My favorites Voyager episode of all time, an episode that says ‘what if Janeway being crazy was real to a bunch of people’. I mean the actual story and values are top tier but canonical insane Janeway? Hell yeah!
You're right bout that I wish you would have did more episodes with the crew like that after all if the Starfleet way
You can tell its a false reality. Harry finally got a promotion!
Yeah, Lieutenant Kim! All he had to do was be more brutal!
Kim The Slayer
Living Witness is my 2nd fave episode of Voyager for its handling of its topic. Evil Voyager crew and the living embodiment of Parody Janeway certainly helps.
What's your #1 favorite episode? Just curious. No judgments! 😀 ☮️😎🤘
@@CybershamanX Dark Frontier
@@myriadmediamusings That was a fun one! 😎
Living Witness is the only VOY episode I still come back to. Year of Hell is still haunted by what could have been. Scorpion still has too much of the bad kind of cheese. But this episode is so good, it actually benefits from the general failings of the series: The autocratic, arbitrarily-written Janeway, the over-the-top genre Seven, the tragically silly Chakotay. And the show's best character, The Doctor, at his most sincere, at the center. The episode says so much without trying to say, or be, more than it can handle. Timeless. Brilliant.
I think of this episode and that episode where the Voyager crew finds out a bunch of conmen-actors had pretended to be them and threatened and intimidated planets the Voyager hadn't even been to yet so people were afraid of the Voyager crew before they'd even landed, as two different instances of the script writers saying, "Okay, what would a Mirror Universe version of the crew be like, but in the normal universe?" but approaching the idea from two different angles.
Voyager has tons of great episodes: Distant Origin, Deathwish, Mortal Coil, Nemesis, Before and After, Blink of an Eye, Course: Oblivion and many others.
No Chuck I am a historian, and I don't think I could put it more precisely than that. Revising history has always been a huge problem for the reasons you outlined, the hardline don't want too and the political tend to use it to spin things the way they wanted history to go. It has to be done but only if it's the truth and not another lie.
Historiography
Perhaps would be a good topic to cover
Orwell warned us about this.
Hisory always goes through revision First the viftor write history then as people start rethinking of the know evils? of the victor the losers start revising history. If we are lucky we get third revision wherethe truth is finally fully revealed. The effort to orginally make the janpanese look evil for WW2 then when people look for someone to blme for the nuclear bomb They start looking at the US as villians oppressing the poor Japanese neither is true. The same thing has happened The conflict between Native Americans and Euro Americans.
I imagine their pitch in the writers room was actually “mirror universe, but serious this time”
I thought DS9 did the AU pretty well
ENT AU was pretty good except for the female uniforms... Just.. I.. just... God I give fucking up ... Whoever wanted that and thought it made sense deserves all the pain.
The only good part about the DS9 mirror universe was Kira wanting to have sex with herself.
Everything else was utterly vapid and boring. Whoever had the idea to do the Terran Empire universe without the Terran Empire should’ve been fired out of a cannon.
Don’t even get me started on the episode that shoved Vic Fontaine in there too. As if we didn’t get enough of that bad Sinatra impersonating creep.
This is the only episode Russ did? He should have been allowed to do more. If his first one was this good, more would have helped elevate the whole show.
That's why he wasn't allowed to do more. It would've made the show good.
@@horaciosi yeah given the overall attitude of voyager showrunners and UPN in general, I can't imagine messages like "don't rewrite history" were very popular with them.
I believe that there was a kind of parity clause in the cast contract. If one got to direct, the rest needed to be offered, at least. Unfortunately, Garrett Wang had an idea for a complete self-insert episode where Harry is the big hero and gets the girl (Seven). Showrunners weren't having that.
BermanTaylor would never have allowed something so mature and rational to happen under their watch.
It's being able to tell these kinds of stories that makes Star Trek so special.
Indeed. One of the few times the Trek ideal was almost flawlessly realized. We've got a great entertaining episode that also provides a great springboard into the philosophical discussion of the subject matter. This should be on the list of episodes that modern Trek should attempt to emulate. Let's throw this question out there: what other Trek (any series) episodes accomplish the same thing. I'll start: TNG Chain of Command, Parts 1&2. 😎🤘☮️
It'd be interesting if this episode was used by Star Trek Discovery as a means to have Robert Picardo appear as the Doctor.
...But that would rely on DISCO writers actually giving a crap about continuity.
I love this episode. It handles the subject really well, and it's done quite well too. Robert Picardo carries a lot of the episode too.
Robert Picardo is always a treasure of an actor and person.
Yeah when I first saw this I was enjoying it a lot the whole way and then it got to the twist at the end and what the episode was all about, I was like "Damn, that was a good Voyager episode." It was very fast paced with all it had to accomplish and still did it seamlessly so 10/10 is well deserved.
This was a great episode. They had the b*lls to face a tough topic and they actually handled it well. Respect where respect is due, well done Voyager.
Did you seriously just censor 'balls' ?
@@KairuHakubi you never know when CZcams will be jacka**es and hide comments because they don't like a word
@@KairuHakubi I thought he meant "bills" 😉
I think it's like the only time they actually didn't self-neuter.
Amazing. Which is why it could never be allowed to happen again.
Bring back the dreck! Bring back total and unashamed enthusiastic embrace of mediocrity (or less), punches pulled, and a wholly consequence-free universe- this is Voyager after all! "Intentionally being Less is our motto!"
@@KairuHakubi I truly loved that
Every Trek actor-directed episode I can think of is a good one, particularly Frakes and Burton. Dawson is usually a good sign too. Didn't realize Russ did one, a good one too.
Brilliant episode and props to Tim Russ for directing such a classic that draws you in with a look of what Voyager could have been if Janeway had disregarded Starfleet's rules are morals with perfect pieces of comedy and a strong message that makes you think long after the episode is over.
By far one of the shows top 5 best.
And props to you for covering it and both exploring and explaining what makes it great.
Skulls for Janeway's command chair!
The fact that the ending is set hundreds of years in the future makes you think. Despite all the technologies Voyager discovered Star Fleet didn't make it to the Delta Quadrant.
The Delta Quadrant is the trash Quadrant. They probably read the reports and lost interest.
or they didn't want to deal with the Borg more than they had to
Space is really big. Think of all the TOS and TNG planets that are never mentioned again. Even if the future Federation has colonies all over the Delta Quadrant or the technology to zip back and forth Willy nilly, it’s conceivable this planet is in a region of space isolated and remote compared to everyone else.
Is this future even still valid after Endgame? It's entirely possible that it didn't happen because of Janeway playing fast and loose with the ethics of time travel.
Isn't it in the same century Discovery is now in? Maybe the events that took place before are responsible.
Ah, the episode in which Janeway doesn't have to pretend to be sane.
😂😂
You have made our great motherly leader Janeway sound like a Power Rangers villain.
I salute you!
Janeway does sound like Rita Repulsa...🤔
This is the thing I found infuriating with Voyager. When they got it right, boy, did they get it right. Yet far too often, they took a great idea and wasted the potential.
It's one of the rare times when DS9 and VOY did things the same way... but in different unexpected ways.
DS9 had Alexander Siddig direct one episode: "Profit and Lace"; it was an abysmal and insulting complete failure on every level. That was the only time he directed.
VOY had Tim Russ direct one episode (today's review): "Living Witness", and it was top tier VOY by far. That was the only time he directed.
I hated "Profit and Lace" for the right reasons - it was a dumb farce.
And Alexander Siddig originally wanted to make it a dark episode and have it about character exploration before some exec thought it should be a transphobic comedy.
@@shiroamakusa8075 sadly when network executives get their way .... We all pay. Execs and BermanTaylor got their way with Voyager overall and the results are *ahem* history.
This is my personally my favourite episode of Voyager, it's a shame Russ has never done more directing work.
Remember, my friends: You might be wrong.
Not about anything in specific, but just in general. You, the people around you, your views, your communities, they are all capable of being wrong.
Do your best not to forget that fact when it truly counts.
Another question is when historical grudges should be set aside for unity, and when history should be viewed in a balanced light instead of focusing in the negative, or twisting events to suit a specific view.
When is a mirror universe episode not a mirror universe episode? This one looks like the entire crew had a lot of fun with it.
YAY! It's my favourite "Not-Mirror Universe" episode. Where Janeway... Is kinda still Janeway? And everyone should be wearing fake twirling moustaches to show JUST how EEEEEVIL they all are.
I remember this episode simply because the preview-trailer-commercial was so good it stuck with me all these years and it did make me wonder just how many other species demonized and vilified Voyager by scapegoating Voyager for all their problems. I don't remember if this episode is before or after Bride of Chaotica but I really wish we could've seen more of Janeway playing a villain because she did such a good job at it.
This episode came before Bride of Chaotica. Yes, I do believe that it was an attempt by the writers to conceive of OOC interpretations of the Voyager crew.
I can’t believe you’re finally back on CZcams. Its been years man! Its so good to see your reviews again
Pretty much accurate depiction of Janeway
I like this Janeway. Enlightened and evil despotism rules !
I mean there's a cold ruthless logic to it. EvilJaneway© gets it.
I do love both the episode and the review. Good job Chuck, and VOY writers, you get a very good A-.
"To reach your home, you would destroy ours?"
"That's right!"
Incredibly based Janeway.
Great review. This truly was one of voyager's best episodes
Before the reveal that it was a simulation, I thought they were going to do a "3 days earlier" to explain all the changes.
Easily my favourite episode of Voyager. Using the potential of the format to its maximum.
I loved this and thought for a moment I was watching an episode set in another version of the Mirror universe.
One of my favorite episodes
For years this was on my list of favorite Star Trek episodes ever before I discovered it was directed by one of my favorite Star Trek cast members ever
Hobestly, if Voyager had more episodes like this, it wpuld be more fondly remembered
One thing that always bother me about that episode was that in 700 year they never talk to any other species
Definetly one of my favorite voyager episodes
I remember when you had posted your review previously Chuck, I loved it then and still love it now.
History is ultimately an eternal discussion and a study of human condition. It's is not about avoiding particular mistakes of a past. It is about understanding who we are and what led to those mistakes.
This might be my favorite Voyager episode.
Well thanks, now that crazy-Janeway voice is back in my head, talking genocide. ;)
I wonder if there's a parody dubbing community around Star Trek like you see with anime. Because I imagine someone who does that having fun with this episode.
The one true Janeway.
This is one of the handful of good Voyager episodes.
A very tiny handful at that, sadly
Man, the Doctor copy is going to have to heavily reacclimate again when he gets to the alpha Quadrant. Especially being a part of several notable chapters of federation history.
I think this is like the only time they actually didn't self-neuter in one way or another on Voyager. It's truly amazing.
Which is why it could never be allowed to happen again.
And chalk me up to those who didn't know Tim Russ directed it. I'm so impressed. No wonder they never let him do it again. He could have saved the whole damn show. He was bringing this up to average (maybe even standout?) TNG level. Well THAT will never do.
That would never work for the duo from hell known as BermanTaylor. Bring back the dreck! Bring back total and unashamed embrace of mediocrity (and less), the punches pulled, and a wholly consequence-free universe- this IS Voyager after all!
"Intentionally being (much) Less isn't just a privilege, it's an honor, one we take very seriously here at Voyager Headquarters!"
When Star Trek meets Noughts and Crosses
Awww, Janeway gets to be her trueself!
No wonder the ep worked so well! JW didn't have to hide it anymore
Great analysis
"Horrified...yet..AROUSED..." Ohh...BABY...pass me the smokes...
10:18 That circular thing on the right with the red light is another one of those props that shows up in various scientific lab settings.
The "Burn" (DIS S3) happens in 3069.
The backup doctor is found in 3074 and departs for Earth "many years" later.
USS Discovery arrives in 3189.
Did the Burn not impact the Delta Quadrant, or do the Kyrians and Vaskans not use dilithium?
Maybe the backup doctor will arrive at Federation HQ in the next DIS season?
You're assuming the people running STD actually know anything about Star Trek. A bold assumption to make. ;p
Crazy janeway: that’s tame, lol
We never got a Mirror Universe episode for Voyager, but if you can pretend, we can just say this was it 😊
We can have a Mirror Universe Voyager episode only if everyone in it has Beards of Evil.
This is one of those episodes that makes me weep, because it shows the kind of potential Voyager had. The show could have been truly special and amazing.
I still love Voyager, probably for a lot of wrong reasons. But it could have been so much more, and it hurts me.
the best voyager episode
I hate to say it...but this is actually the basic plot this show needed more of...the fake one I mean. The whole idea of this show was supposed to be that Voyager is centuries more advanced in tech than the cultures they encounter, that the Caretaker was bringing in all these super advanced(in comparison) civs while searching for his replacement, and then just leaving them, which is how the Kazon became the idiots they were, with weapons and drives more complex than they could ever hope to understand, basically cavemen being given AK-47s.
Their coming into a system is an event that should be marked with the start of a new calendar, as they, just by being there, send ripples through every society they encounter, and they constantly have to trade with less advanced civilizations for materials they need. It's there, in kernels, in the first and second seasons, but it never goes far enough, never turns it into the theme of the piece, which was much more just...more TNG, with worse scripts and fresh to the roles actors.
I want a mini-series "Star Trek: EMH2" detailing the journey of the Doctor copy on his way home alone.
"alright, hand me Aardvark to Abacus." That is just the cherry on top
Chakotay talks about his people at him. - I'd of broken right there.
Subscribed excellent video
This should have been a Mirror Universe episode. You can't change my mind!
His story. A reference to Michael Jackson. History won’t forget your lack of knowledge
I might be off by a century or so, but I think the Backup EMH's departure for Earth in the history told at the very end places him in Discovery's future-world timeframe. Excuse for a cameo or guest shot?
It was unfortunate that the writing for Voyager was so uneven, and often poor, that episodes such as this were a surprise.
It didn't help that most of the main characters felt more like guest stars most of the time. Chakotay is the most noticeable one.
@@smf5576 Early on Voyager would at least occasionally try to be an ensemble show a la TNG/DS9. After season 4 began, it was the same dynamic as TOS. TOS was the Kirk, Spock and McCoy show, and after Scorpion, Voyager came pretty close to being the Janeway, Seven and Doctor show.
Post-S3, there would be the occasional bit about Tom and Belanna's relationship... Um... I think they eventually subjected Tuvok to the pon-farr after doing that with Vorik in S2... Other than the message at the end of Timeless did anything ever happen to Harry again? Chakotay? Neelix? Icheb ended up being interesting but why do they need a new character when there's half a dozen existing ones starving to death for lack of screen time?
So true.
I'm willing to bet this was mirror episode when they first wrote the script but changed the plans.
SO this was all just an observation. An interpritation of the Federation which explains the bad relations and that's enough of that!
I don't know about others but when I was studying history I was taught that any source that claimed to be telling the truth was more made up than Harry potter and to look at the surrounding information of the time.
For example, a life story of a small town baker who was so talented he was able to move to the city and become a millionaire.
Yet the context might tell you that the bakery filed for bankruptcy, the baker was listed as just another employee and it was the stock broker spouse whos name was on the penthouse ect
When I first watched this episode I thought it was a Mirror Universe for the first few minutes. But I quickly realized this made no sense with the continuity established by DS9.
3:57 weaponized potato bombs? Is this aperture?
potato mines in Plants VS Zombies
Ah, my favorite Star Trek episode, Im not claiming its the best one of course, but I think out of the 100s of them this is the one I enjoy the most by itself.
I don't think the historian was trying to be revisionist. Being that the Delta Quandrent seems to be filled with one dimensional self opertunists. I would figure with that trend there is no reason to not fill in the gaps with the aspects of the other species in the area.
That is how a lot of errors creep into both professional and popular
History. For example, the experience of breweries not suffering from cholera outbreaks was used as guesswork for predicting how people hundreds of years earlier drank alcohol to avoid getting sick but was wrong. It was an honest mistake born of knowing a little bit of contemporary medicine and not much of the letters of the era.
Stupid mistakes happen more commonly such as the way forced labor that was common in Belgian or even French colonies got attributed to UK colonies and taking present-day accounts to Westerners gets taken as more credible than written documentation of the past.
Filling in the gaps is how a lot of extrapolation has to happen and how a lot of people get overconfident.
All you can really do is hope that people have the goodwill to make note of their assumptions and to be aware they may have over-estimated an effect.
“Is an ultimately inconsequential lie worth more than the lives lost worth trying to correct it?” I’m sorry, but WHAT?
1. How is the lie (or misapprehension…after 700 hundred years, who knows how the truth of what happened was lost) not consequential? An entire society has been built around an aggressor/victim narrative. The truth of what happened was, and remained, critical to how millions of people saw themselves, and how they interacted with one another.
2. A fidelity to fact is among the most reliable foundations of progress - in every field of public endeavor - that are available to us (or, I suppose, any sentient species). Surrendering to the challenges that arise from maintaining that commitment is at the heart of our sad contemporaneous circumstances. In the U.S., we have millions of people who have been systematically lied to for decades via a propaganda machine mastheaded by a single pseudo news source. The exploitation of certain among our many poorly adapted psychological inclinations has led to an erosion of comity and trust, and a very real threat to the society itself.
Thanks for this video. I hadn’t known Tim Russ directed this episode. What an amazing resume builder…one of the most beloved outings of the entire series and one of the top 20 in all of Star Trek television.
You can tell this episode was released before 2016.
11:41 "tedryn leads the assault. killing three people and taking seven hostage."
One of best episodes of this series! Then, it's ironic that such good story was made without presence any of main characters of VOY...
Damn it, I was looking to sit here and lose IQ points while laughing, but this one, I feel, rather raised me a couple! Well taught!
Anyone else think "the doctor left to return home" is just another version of "we sent your dog to a farm"?
I could see that...the Doctor accidentally deleting himself when he hurriedly tried to delete his search history on Space Google.
This episode is fantastic. And shows very well what can happen in the flashpoint of a race riot only to have amazing good come of it. While violence isn't at all condoned, it's a natural thing to happen if a faction believes that talking cannot resolve conflict. This gives me all kinds of good feels!
I'm surprised you never Mentioned the similarity between this And a certain DS9 episode That also Deals with revisionist history
so... this is before or after the Burn?
I’m reminded of the Simpsons episode Lisa the Iconoclast. Though that was meant to be funny. It’s plot was rather educational for a kid.
Even back when it first aired I was giving Voyager a lot of shit. I recognized how bad a lot of the episodes were. But even then, I knew this was a standout episode this was for the series. The subject matter and the way it was handled is what Trek is supposed to be about.
I didn't know until now that SFDebris had a channel that was running away!
Sounds like your describing American college campuses
Didn't the actor who played the historian also play a guy in Babylon 5 who planned to use holograms of the main characters centuries later to depict them as villains?
"I am a man of peace" lol
its voyagers way to do a mirror universe like episode.
It is incredibly disheartening that echo chambers are prevalent... I mean something that bothered me the most in these regards is how sciences have ask done it. Treating biology chemistry and physics as something incompatible when really it's the same stuff just with different ways of writing it down.
I can't edit my comment please disregard the ask
It's all math
That’s not evil Janeway. She has no goatee
"the war was all about states' rights, not slavery"
There were many reasons. But the folks claiming it was _all_ about states' rights are just as wrong as the folks claiming it was _all_ about slavery. Nor does it help that those two (and others) were intertwined.
"Lincoln was a perfect president with no flaws, who never did anything that seized massive amounts of power or silenced opposition or..." well... just look him up, from historians who look at how Lincoln also did damage and rather unpresidential/unconstitutional things too.
There IS an aspect of the Civil War that's about State's Rights, even with one of those rights being individual state choice on slavery.
And I could point out examples in modern times of knock on effects from that sort of thinking that are still dividing us now...
@@boobah5643 Actuakky for the South leaders and rich it was about slavery its in thier own words.
@@boobah5643 states rights to own slaves
Well, the North didn't make it about slavery for a long time to avoid offending the Slave States that weren't part of the Confederacy, and the reason the South went from not-war to war was nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with whether their declarations were lawful secession (per their own claims), in which case Federal forts were unlawful occupation, or an illegal uprising. Notably, this issue was never settled because the Union was too worried the Supreme Court might rule secession was lawful to try any of the Confederate leadership.
Unrelated to the episode overall
But I been playing tons of house of the dead lately
And a race called the Curiens (at the least thats how my non native english speaking aelf hears the pronunciation) getting targeted by a bioweapon makes me think they suffered like G did.
Not exactly, but you could say it's Star Trek CRT.
weaponized potato bombs! hf sheet lmfao
What would have made this even more innacurate as the holographic portrayal would be for Tuvok to be Romulan, not Vulcan, since he clearly seems to enjoy what he was doing.
That would have been interesting, as their information was faulty already. If you wanted to go all-out with the idea, have Neelix be a Ferengi and B'elanna Torres be twin sisters (one fully human and one fully Klingon).
when trek is accused of ripping off Babylon 5 with ds9, this episode coming out a year after Deconstruction Of Falling Stars which also deals with revisionist history does not help
I thought about the term history meaning his story a few days ago I shit ya not n realised a poor interpretation it is... I mean for one there's only 1 s making it his Tory... Or hi story. Which seems more apt.