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Review: Odyssey 1x03 - 'The Lotus Eaters' |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Saturday, 01 March 2008
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 This coming Tuesday, March 4th, Hidden Frontier will release the third episode in its Star Trek: Odyssey series, ‘The Lotus Eaters,’ a name taken from Homer’s The Odyssey. As usual, the graphics are the top-notch work we’ve come to expect from the Hidden Frontier gang, but compared to the previous two entries in the Odyssey series, the story and acting fall short.
By now the fact that the Odyssey is stuck in the Andromeda Galaxy has been well-established, and that is reinforced by the opening, which places the U.S.S. Odyssey in the middle of yet another skirmish with the Archien Empire. But this time soon after their fight is terminated by a mad dash for somewhere, anywhere else, they pick up a Starfleet distress signal. Still in Andromeda, in case you’d missed that part.
If you’re familiar with the lotus-eating portion of Homer’s The Odyssey, you’ll remember that the lotus was a hallucinogenic plant that rendered Odysseus’ crew as inert shells of the warriors that had conquered Troy (they were only there because Poseidon was angry at Odysseus and sent the crew way off course). While there are no mind-altering flowers to be eaten in ‘The Lotus Eaters,’ there is that sort of complacency encountered in a race we saw, oh, forty years ago that happens to hail from the Andromeda Galaxy.
I won’t ruin all the surprises for you, but suffice to say, some of the plot devices in this episode are more than a bit contrived. Writers Rob Caves and Eric Weaver have put out good stories before, but this one simply falls flat and seems to skip over scenes that you expected to happen next.
Let’s spatter in some good news here. The Romulan uniform and makeup worn by Michelle Laurent (T’Lorra) are as before well made. Her character has developed a bit more Romulan nuance since the last episode and doesn’t seem to be as Klingon-blood-thirsty as before. I’d still like for her to take on some more conniving devious Romulan traits or do something to remind Ro Nevin and the audience that she is still a Romulan beneath those pointed ears and long black hair.
That brings me to T’Lorra’s foil: Betazoid security Lieutenant Maya Stadi, played by Julia Morizawa. I can’t stand her. Something about the smug and blatantly snide portrayal of somebody who can read your thoughts just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s that she’s constantly smug and blatantly snide. Her role as security officer seems to be in title only, as she allows Ro and T’Lorra to enter potentially dangerous scenarios without making sure the area is safe for her superior officers. Thankfully, the petty sniping with T’Lorra has been downplayed from what we saw in ‘The Wine Dark Sea.’
Brandon McConnell’s acting as Lt. Commander Ro Nevin also disappointed this time around. For an inexperienced commander, he sure is handling the stresses of being alone in a distant galaxy with a broken ship and crew all the while being hunted by the Archeins pretty well. That, or he’s chosen to bury all emotion and not let any leak into his performance. There are instances where he had to make tough decisions and there’s just no sense that he could possibly be troubled by the choices.
Guest stars Moledee M. Spevack and Hal Alpert both had good characters that developed a decent amount of emotional depth for only being in one episode and having to deal with plot developments at the same time. And that leads me to ask, where’s everybody else? Characters like engineer Joshua Gillen (Tim Fouch) and helmsman Alex Wozniak (Sam Basca) get but a handful of lines, and Matthew Montgomery as Dr. Owen Vaughn is nowhere to be seen. These character, Gillen and Vaughn in particular, all have potential for strong character development and thus far have been only used for when the plot calls on somebody to fix something. I hope that in future episodes we’ll get to see more of those that have turned into almost secondary characters.
Prop handling by the actors was plenty and inconsistent. While some knew how to carry a phaser, others seemed unsure of which way to point the thing. I know it’s an amateur production, but use the props with conviction. Treat the phaser like it really does work and it really is a weapon.
‘The Lotus Eaters’ did bring us something that we don’t see all that often in Hidden Frontier productions: a live set. While all the Archein and Odyssey sets were still CGI, one of the planet scenes was filmed out in the environment, which meant that they could finally throw in different camera angles without having to render a new green screen background for that one shot. Unfortunately, despite there being multiple scenes on the surface, they returned to the green screen work. In most of the rest of the green screen scenes the lighting is done well, including the nice touch of having light shining up in the actors faces as they sit in a shuttle.
On the subject of graphics, we get to see more beautiful shots of the Starship Odyssey flying around, along with an ARGO (the big toy shuttle first introduced in Star Trek Nemesis). The Odyssey is showing the signs of wear and battle, with extensive scarring on its hull, very much unlike the pristine condition that we always saw on Voyager.
As I’ve said before, the costumes were still poorly tailored, especially for some of the secondary characters. If you’re going to have a speaking role on camera, your costume should probably at least have some appearance of being the right size. If not, take a safety pin to the back of your jacket and tighten it up so the collar isn’t too wide by several inches.
We do get more insight into what the Archeins are like (oppressive and somewhat Nazi-like, it would seem), though right now explanation of why and what seems to be left out with the desire of leaving some mystery behind the regime, how it works, and where each character stands in the grand scheme of things. Sharon Savene is much better as the twisted Majan Seram than her role as the unemotional Captain Faisal in Star Trek: The Helena Chronicles.
Star Trek: Odyssey, ‘The Lotus Eaters,’ runs 30 minutes long and will be available for download from the Hidden Frontier website on Tuesday, March 4, 2008. It will be posted in both a high and low resolution version (335 MB and 114 MB, respectively), with a DIVX version to be available soon after. Until then, a preview of ‘The Lotus Eaters’ is also available on the Hidden Frontier website.
Watch: Star Trek: Odyssey - ‘The Lotus Eaters’
Discuss: TrekUnited Forum
Star Trek: Odyssey - 1x03 - 'The Lotus Eaters'
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"If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we really are."
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