Written By: Bryan Fuller
Directed By: David Livingston
Rating: *** (out of 5)
Sound familiar? That is the sound of the majority of people when asked their opinion on �Spirit Folk.� I accept other peoples opinions but I do think a lot of people are over reacting. Okay, so there are some very questionable writing decisions here but �Spirit Folk� isn�t too bad.
It�s a sequel, in a way, of last years forgettable �Concerning Flight� when tackling the issue of what some don�t understand; but of course its more of a sequel to �Fair Haven.� �Spirit Folk� takes this one step further by asking the question can people from different worlds and different understandings be friends? And this is a commendable question to ask.
The problem isn�t really the plot of the episode, but how the plot proceeds. In other words, what happens here could�ve happened in a different way and that means the crap in the episode didn�t need to be there.
First of all, since �Fair Haven� there has been no mention of the Irish town. Apparently Janeway�s relationship with Mr. Sullivan has flourished and people have taken up jobs in the town for their leisure off duty. But since when did all this happen? What we needed to see is a bit more of Fair Haven and how often the crew goes there. It�s like a Captain Proton thing. We saw Tom go to the Captain Proton program often, but we didn�t need to too. We needed to see more of Fair Haven.
And guess what? I have a good story to fit with what I wanted to see before �Spirit Folk.� This little idea of mine would change the whole ep and would be a B or C story for an episode, I�d have the Doc deciding to make Fair Haven his permanent residence after all he is a hologram! I would than have the Doc and Paris working together to make the holograms much more realistic, which would lead into �Spirit Folk.� That way the characters sentience would be more realistic instead of that sh** about the algorithm that makes holograms oblivious to the outside world.
The only other thing to change is Janeway�s decision to possibly sacrifice Tom and Harry�s lives for the holographic town. Either have the crew rebel against Janeway for her stupid decision, change the story so those two don�t need to go in the holodeck or just get rid of that line! I�m sure there are other possibilities to get Harry and Tom into the holodeck so that the safeties can go offline and the Doc ending up going in there so that Sullivan can get the mobile emitter!! It was obvious that that direction was forced.
I enjoyed the scene were Harry�s girlfriend is turned into a cow, I enjoyed most of the episode! But I hope we don�t see this quaint little town again because it just been another Season 6 wasted opportunity. The premise just wasn�t used how should�ve been. The Janeway love story should�ve been dropped here also because it seems to me the writers just don�t care about continuing the issue.
Nowhere near as bad as I was expecting, but still not that good. The writers are just taking us for idiots and that�s the only reason why I would find �Sprit Folk� offending. Well, it was a nice � (ummm, well, the writers didn�t try � they didn�t think�) filler!