'Flashback'

Stardate:50126.4
Written By: Brannon Braga
Directed By: David Livingston
Rating: **** (out of 5)

"Flashback" was a great Tuvok episode, and a great 30th Anniversary tribute but I found DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations" a better tribute because "Trials and Tribble-ations" focused more on having fun while "Flashback" was more a Tuvok episode than a 30th Anniversary special.

But there is nothing wrong with that because "Flashback" succeeds anyway.

As the story unfolded it never once seemed to be 'we want to get Sulu and all that on the screen and we really need any story to do that.'� It was well thought out by writer, Brannon Braga. And typical of Braga the story is a bit wierd and maybe hard to understand or make sense of.

The story shows Tuvok having visions and memories of a young girl falling down a cliff to her death. Through a Vulcan mind 'thingy' Janeway ventures into the meorie to find the cause, ending up on the Excelsior during the Praxis explosion and onwards. It's soon discovered that a mind disease is causing Tuvok's trauma.

It was nice seeing Sulu and the gang, plus Kang, again.� They are certainly getting older, especially Sulu, he seems to have gained a bit of weight too! I really love the way the story fits in with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, there are also some lines that nicely relate to the Original series.

It was fun seeing all those scenes from ST: VI again, especially the SFX scenes. OK, so they were also saving money but it wrk well. Its surprising that such SFX from the movie fits in with the episode so well as the SFX has gotten much better for TV! Having Janeway seeing the junior Tuvok was fun also.� But I found that the dialogue from Star Trek VI was a lot better done in the movie than here.� The way Sulu and Dimitri's original lines where re-delivered sounded as if they where mocking themselves, and for me it didn't come across too well.� Maybe it was Livingston's directing that differed from Meyer's of Star Trek VI?

There are a lot of really good scenes strewn around, like when Tuvok is telling Rand about the Tea.� Janeway's face was so funny when Tuvok said, "I am not trying to influence the Captains view of me" (or whatever), and than afterwards Janeway says, "You never brought me Tea!" There was also an excellent, more serious scene when Janeway is comparing TOS-times to 'modern' times saying that they where "a lot quicker to draw their phasers and slower to adhere to the Prime Directive."� Another comparison scene is when Tuvok tells Dimitri that he can't tolerate humans and "humans want everyone to be exactly like them."
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The medical-babble was tolerable and I enjoyed a lot of the sickbay scenes as the Doc was trying to get rid of Tuvok's disease.� For some reason I found those scenes very suspenseful.

Surprisingly, there isn't much more to say about "Flashback," it was a great 30th Anniversary special, it was a good Tuvok episode, it had a lot of great scenes, it was fun and serious at the same time and pretty darn good.� I was going to give it a ***1/2, but I feel generous today so **** it is!! Not as good as "Trials and Tribble-ations" but it deserves credit.