Someone to Watch Over Me

The Doctor instructs Seven of Nine in a more complex social interaction.

This is a strong episode with great humour and character moments.

For me this is one of the better comedy episodes, as the jokes are well written and fairly prolific. There is a great mix of awkward social interactions, funny dialogue, sight gags, and fish-out-of-water situations involving Seven.

The writer deserves as much credit as the filmmakers for providing funny material that is not traditionally Star Trek, particularly with a lack of sci-fi focus. It does however embody the values associated with the show such as celebrating the difference of its characters. I appreciate this will depend on your own sense of humour, as comedy is in the eye of the beholder.

Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan are key to its success as they display impressive comic timing and excellent chemistry in their scenes together. Some of their more heartfelt character exchanges work very well too. Star Trek usually does romance badly and they are supported well by the likes of Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, and Roxanne Dawson.

Awful Awful just Awful. Cringefest. It just doesn't work. It's embarrassing. Words fail me how bad this dire episode plays out.

We know the Dr can sing. It's nice that we find out 7 can also sing .

So why do we have to crowbar this ability into an inept episode.

I don't watch Star Trek for this kind of simplistic mellodrama. It is so desperately disappointing and at least a waste of electricity to view it.

No more simplistic melodramas please !

It just doesn't work. It's embarrassing. Words fail me how bad this dire episode plays out.

We know the Dr can sort of sing. It's nice that we find out 7 can also. Sort of sing .

So why do we have to wedge this ability into a dire episode.

I don't watch Star Trek for this kind of simplistic mellodrama. It is so desperately disappointing and at least a waste of electricity to view it.

Yes, it is an intergalactic "My Fair Lady." The doctor has been teaching Seven social integration. She is, of course, quite a challenging student. He decides it's time for her to start dating. So she chooses a shy man from engineering and asks him out. Of course, it is an utter disaster. But as this happens, the Doc (Henry Higgins) begins to feel a romantic attraction for our Borg bombshell. Jeri Ryan is perfection in her role. She connects with him, but we have to remember that her circuitry works differently. She admires her successes but doesn't quite cross the threshold. There are some seriously touching scenes. Meanwhile, a subplot is the adventures of a young man from a sterile planetary society going bonkers when he finally gets to spread his wings, overeating, overindulging, and carrying on in general. Neelix almost has a heart attack tracking the guy.

To me this is the best episode of Star Trek Voyager. I think that The Doctor and Seven Of Nine are by far the best characters and this episode is almost entirely about them. Seven is very funny in an understated way and The Doctor is extremely charming and charismatic. I have autism and so I relate to Seven Of Nine a lot. The side story is fun enough, but the best part is The Doctor teaching Seven all about dating and social skills. Seven Of Nine really is my dream woman, she is stunningly beautiful, but also smart and kind, and there are no annoying mental games with her, she will just tell you exactly how she feels at all times, and I like that a lot. I wish she was my wife. P. S. My God what a body! WOOF!

As interesting as it was to see a relationship happen between The Doctor and Seven, the B story doesn't seems to give any support to the A story. In fact the B story is a complete waste of time.

Neelix is suffering a monk (perhaps a novice) who is outside the monastery, and is now indulging, to an excess, on everything he cannot have back home. This is treated in a very "laughing" and jovial manner, unfortunately that should not have been the case, and it only cements the series itself into being rather flippant about religion. A few lessons could be learned from Deep Space Nine. Instead of the story trying to understand why this novice is overindulging, or perhaps even trying a way to merge the two stories is never approached. What we have is 30 minutes of a fun A story while we suffer through the rest of the episode's B story.

Merging the two could have been easy. A novice who is frightened of making his final vows goes "off the deep end" into over indulgence to curb his fear. The doctor who cannot bring himself to tell Seven that he has fallen for her. Both suffering from a fear of moving forward. Neelix could have offered his experiences to the monk in order to help his decision. Then while trying to recover from intoxication the Doctor and the monk have a one on one. It is this one on one that allows both to move forward. However the monk succeeds at his decision the Doctor is still hesitant.

I understand that to a lot of fans this episodes is on their top list. It's not skippable, but if you are watching on DVD you can fast forward over the monk parts. They are irrelevant to the story.