Artificially Real

Another couple of episodes of VisionQuest were released this week and they weren't bad, the second of them in particular having good moments. Maybe it should come as no surprise since it was written by Michael Taylor, another Star Trek writer but, unlike Terry Matalas, Taylor hails from the '90s era Star Trek, when he wrote quite a few episodes of Voyager and four episodes of Deep Space Nine, including 1995's "The Visitor", which is often hailed not only as a great DS9 episode but one of the greatest in the entire Star Trek franchise.

"The Visitor" is a father and son story in which the father, Captain Sisko, gets caught in a time anomaly that sends him ahead in time at various intervals, during which he's able to briefly meet with his son, Jake, and see him grow older. Having written a classic father and son story would seem to make Taylor an ideal candidate for writing on VisionQuest, since much of the plot revolves around the father/son relationship between Vision and Tommy, though it's the third episode, written by Cindy Appel, that deals more with their relationship while the fourth, Taylor's episode, is much more about AI and synthetic lifeforms.

It's certainly a timely topic, and the episode features a cameo from JIM, one of the first characters in Timely Comics, the company that became Marvel, from 1939. JIM's seen at a conference hosted by Katerina Wells, played by Mary McDonnell, best known as the president on the 2004 reboot of Battlestar Galactica. Wells is a board member of a biotech group partly responsible for developing Ultron.

Much of the episode revolves around Vision and Ultron's relationship, with the two of them presented as the good and evil polar opposites by Wells' presentation, making their increasing rapport all the more interesting. There are some genuinely funny moments, like when the two of them try to work out a CAPTCHA together, that also serve to further define their personalities and their relationship. It leads to an amazing, brutal climax.

I found Vision's shirt really distracting. At first I thought those were real suspenders/braces and wondered why the costume designer couldn't put buttons on his trousers for them. Looking closer, I think it's a print on the shirt and not real braces at all (I'll say braces since he's English and the episode's set in England). This part of the episode is set in the virtual, computer world so maybe it's supposed to be a suggestion that Vision's ability to simulate braces is broken. That's really not how it comes across. Well, it was a good episode otherwise.

It's hard to say if the episode has anything truly relevant to say about AI since all the AI characters are basically human. But AI is starting to seem eerily human nowadays.

VisionQuest is available on Disney+.