Written By: Michael Taylor
Directed By: John Kretchmer
Rating: ** (out of 5)
Flotter and Treevis are understandably cheesy being in a kid�s holonovel, and a famous one at that, but by concentrating on these, as a catalyst for the story, is simply ridiculous. I do think that the whole holonovel idea is a good one. Through these novels, the child becomes resourceful and clever and more interested in learning. No wonder these kids are so clever! But we didn�t need so much irrelevant time on this.
I think �Once Upon a Time� would be a lot more powerful if it concentrated on the Delta Flyer�s crash or Neelix. Naomi Wildman is a commendable character, and acted wonderfully by Scarlet Pomers, but unfortunately the entire Naomi plot isn�t any good because of the Flotter program.
It was good, however, that Naomi was put into consideration. Everything Voyager has been through must be at little tough for the child. Neelix is great when standing up for Naomi�s rights, even he was a little over-acted by Ethan Phillips.
The entire crash was kind of confusing. I don�t feel we ever get a good sense of their situation. They crashed onto an inhospitable planet, and they were buried under rock which has something in it so transporters and sensors can�t pick them up. But in the outside view the shuttle was clearly not buried. And at the end there seemed to be no trouble getting the crew out.
The climax, where Naomi is in the holodeck, wasn�t too bad in the dialogue department. But come on, Naomi reprogrammed Flotter and Treevis? Really, I get sad hints of Wesley-nisation there.
To me, the Delta Flyer crashing was quickly shoved into the episode, the writers wanting a reason for Naomi to suffer a bit. The episode also felt a bit uneven switching from Naomi�s peril to the Delta Flyer and than into the past of Neelix.
Instead of shoving a bunch of story lines crudely put together take out Treevis and Flotter, save them for a crazy Z-story at some stage, and have Naomi discover her mothers injured sooner in the episode. Have more �bonding� in the Delta Flyer, and have Neelix get a good part by putting his sister in the broth and adding more drama into Neelix�s dilemma by, maybe, having him remember some kind of bad thing that happened to his sister. Similar to TNG�s �Dark Page� where Lwaxanna fainted when seeing the child fall into the water.
On the good side, the acting was quite good, if overacted, like I said before. And there are some very impressive CGI shots, Voyager moving in orbit of the planet was beautiful, and so was Voyager quickly jumping to warp near the planet as the Ion storm came close.
One thing is odd though, the Delta Flyer was able to be salvaged. Why couldn�t the other shuttles be salvaged? One BIG example that I can think of is in �Innocence,� an entire shuttle, very intact too, was left behind.
So, it�s not very pleasing, but just hung in there with your attention. It had the right idea, but I personally like Star Trek and not �Humphrey .B. Bear goes into Outer Space�