22 “Must Watch” Episodes of Star Trek Voyager

Plus other recommendations with the qualifier **if**

SEASON 1

Caretaker (2-Parter), because it sets up the entire series.

Phage, because it’s a new idea we haven’t seen in Trek before, and the Vidiians are a recurring foe that will reappear later.

Eye of the Needle, because it’s a good story well executed

Learning Curve, because it addresses an underserved promise of the series – conflict between two different crews being forced to integrate, and the characterizations are solid.

SEASON 2

Projections, because it’s a Doctor episode, featuring Lt Barclay

Meld, because Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) is a good actor playing a psychotic betazoid, and Tim Russ gets to act.

Death Wish, because it’s a Q episode with a very Star Trekkian premise and the guest actor is lovely. Possibly my favourite ep of the entire series.

Tuvix, because it’s a compelling idea and the guest actor is great. I wrote a whole blog entry on this episode

Basics Part 1, **if** you want to watch Basics Part 2 (see below)

SEASON 3

Basics Part 2, **if** you watched part 1, because it resolves Brad Dourif’s character

Flashback, **if** you want a tie-in to Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country and Captain Sulu

False Profits, because Ferengi are amusing, and it ties in with the TNG episode “The Price”

Future’s End (2-parter) **if** you enjoy Ed Begley Jr, Sarah Silverman, and episodes where Star Trek characters time travel back to the modern day

Distant Origin, because it involves religion and dinosaurs

Scorpion Part 1, because it introduces Seven of Nine

SEASON 4

Scorpion Part 2 because you watched Part 1

Year of Hell (2-parter) because of how dark it is, plus Kurtwood Smith’s performance.

Mortal Coil because its proper Star Trek and very well written.

Message In A Bottle because it’s a Doctor episode starring Andy Dick

Living Witness because it’s a Doctor episode and is proper Star Trek

SEASON 5

Nothing Human because it’s a Doctor episode and proper Star Trek

Bride of Chaotica! **if** you like holodeck adventures and 1930s pulp serials

SEASON 6

Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy because it’s a Doctor episode with some great guest stars

Pathfinder **if** you miss TNG and want to see Troi and Barclay again

SEASON 7

Critical Care because it’s a Doctor episode and is proper Star Trek

Body and Soul **if** you like the idea of the Doctor inhabiting Seven’s body

Author, Author because it’s a Doctor episode and is entertaining

Endgame **if** you want to see how it all ends.

August 27, 2026August 27, 2026

Kyoto is in Japan

Travelling from Tokyo? You will find many delectable foodstuffs in the Tokyo shinkansen station

‘neko’ is Japanese for cat

Tokyo Banana – famous – but is it good?

Enjoy your meal on the shinkansen. If you have a group of 3 or 4, you can spin the seats around to face eachother.

If you take the shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto you might see Mt. Fuji!

We stayed at Ryokan Hostel Gion [google map]

With no set plans, you might wander around in the evening and find something interesting, like Funny Creatures Forest with reptiles, owls, and giant millipedes. Trigger warning if you’re a creature who would prefer to be free in the wild!

NISHIKI MARKET

On Day 2 we got up early to visit Nishiki Market [map link] No entry fee of course.

saw some lovely things on the way

Kamo River is lovely in the morning

We were too early for melonpan, but we’ll be back!

IMPORTANT NOTE! It’s considered rude to eat and walk in Japan. So a lot of vendors have designated eating areas. – sometimes in the back of the stall, which opens up into a larger space. Keep your eyes open for signage.

Sparrows, you say? Sure I’ll take a nibble….

Tako is Japanese for octopus

If you see this colored roof you are in the right place

A highlight of the market is the macha shops!

Immediately recognizable by the piece of plane attached to the awning, Google calls ハリケーン寺町京極店 a video arcade. I would call it a claw game and gachapon store. It’s fun to browse through ‘gacha’ shops just to see what weird plastic offerings are on hand. They make good souvenirs but there’s a degree of randomness to what you get, so you might not get exactly what you hope for. [map link]

My favourite part of traveling is just wandering around and discovering things

When we were there, the canals around the area had some fun art installations

Pontocho Alley is full of tempura, beef, and okonomiyaki restaurants. [map link]

Shōrenin Temple 青蓮院

It’s a short walk from the Higashiyama Station to the buddist temple! Entry fee is 600 yen (less than $6 CAD in 2026)

Here’s a daytime photo I grabbed off the net

they offer night visits, which is what we did. Here’s another photo that’s not mine, because my photos were crummy

My crummy photos:

Chionin Buddhist Temple (知恩院) and Marayuma Park

Just south of Shoren-in buddhist temple is the much larger Chionin head temple of the Jodo sect of Japanese Buddhism, which has millions of followers and is one of the most popular Buddhist sects in Japan. The temple has spacious grounds and large buildings. Visitors can view the temple grounds free of charge.

Here’s a guide with a nice map https://www.chion-in.or.jp/en/guide/

and this https://www.japanmanifest.com/chionin-temple/

Check online for the right way to do this!

Yasaka Shinto Shrine

Free to visit

Maccha House Kyoto Kawaramachi

[map link]

You go upstairs to eat

Nijo Castle

[map link to Nijo Castle] There’s a train station (Nijojo-mae Sta) right next to the castle! Just exit and walk to the Grand East Gate

Built in 1603, this cypress-wood castle with extensive gardens was a home for the shogun Ieyasu. Plan for 1.5 hours here. Admission is 800 yen for adults ($7 CAD in 2026)

more to come

Fushimi Inari Shrine

It’s a five minute train ride on the brown Nara Line from Kyoto Station

more to come

June 5, 2026June 5, 2026

AtomiCon 2026 – July 8, 5pm-9pm Heritage Hall Vancouver Canada

Poster design by Paola Garrido

AtomiCon is back once again!

BUT WHAT IS ATOMICON?

It’s a small, single evening artist market put on by Vancouver animation studio Atomic Cartoons, and I will be there tabling with many other remarkable artists!

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO GET IN?

Nothing!

WHAT KIND OF STUFF WILL TOREN HAVE TO PURCHASE (AND GIVE AWAY!)

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets merchandise (stickers, CDs, and maybe even shirts!)

My dreaded Cthulhu & His Greasy Spawn poster, in various sizes

These brand new stickers:

Comic book anthologies featuring Spaceship Zero and my World Wildlife Federation of Justice characters!

Actual physical original drawings that were published in D&D books – priced to move! Everything below AND MUCH MORE

Plus, who knows what else? NOT ME! NOT YET!

February 27, 2026

Overdue Who Review: Castrovalva – Peter Davison’s First Adventure!

Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), Season 19, 1982. Four parts.

Castrovalva^[1] is a frazione of Anversa degli Abruzzi, a municipality in the Abruzzo, region of Italy. The village, which clings to the top of a steep hill, was depicted in M.C. Escher‘s 1930 lithograph “Castrovalva”. The first serial of the 19th season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who is entitled Castrovalva, which was first broadcast in 1982, was named after this lithograph

After his regeneration, the Doctor is disoriented and unable to function, so Nyssa and Tegan try to help him recover and in the TARDIS’ database find a location called Castrovalva, which seems an ideal place for a rest. Unfortunately, The Master has kidnapped Adric and used his powers of math to create this otherwise fictional Castrovalva, The heroes figure this out when they cannot leave because of “recursive occlusion” which is a technobabble way of saying they’re stuck on MC Escher’s looping staircases.

The Master stupidly reveals himself and one of the NPCs in the village sacrifices himself to free Adric, which cause Castrovalva to collapse around The Master, though our heroes escape through a secret passage. The end!

Every time the Doctor regenerates, he’s out of it for a while, which gives the companions some time to shine. This is a good idea and the young actors do an admirable job here. The Master as always is hammy and moustache-twirling, missing no opportunity for an evil laugh at camera (sometimes with no sound?)

This story could have been half the length. Scenes spent chasing string through the halls of the TARDIS and hauling a box through the woods could have been cut. Also, why did The Master create Castrovalva with free will and a magic tapestry that functions like a scrying pool – or were those parts Adric’s doing? “The Master leaves nothing to chance,” the Doctor says. Oh reaallllyy?

Next: Four to Doomsday

February 22, 2026

Overdue Who Review: Logopolis

Fourth Doctor, Season 18, 1981 – four 25 minute episodes

It’s Tom Baker’s final Doctor Who story!

Floating through space and time, we learn that the TARDIS has a Cloister Bell to warn of trouble (have we seen this before or since?) but the Doctor decides to go to modern England to fix the TARDIS’ chameleon circuit – the device that allows it to appear as any object, and the reason why the TARDIS has been stuck in the shape of a British police box for hundreds of episodes. For some nonsense reason, in order to effect repairs, he has to take precise measurements of an actual police box and take them to the what I like to call The Holy Order of Maths on the planet Logopolis.

The Doctor’s arch nemesis The Master gets wind of this plan and materializes his own TARDIS around the police box, which causes a recursion loop (whatever that is) and traps the Doctor and Adric. A very big problem but it actually isn’t as they soon appear outside the TARDIS for reasons unexplained.

A mysterious white watcher figure tells The Doctor to go to Logopolis immediately, where a bunch of old white dudes are doing math in their heads to hold the universe together. The Doctor asks their help with his Block Transfer (whatever that is) but the Master ruins the computations by shrinking some of the old men and now the TARDIS is shrinking with the doctor inside. This is resolved in short order with more maths.

The Master keeps messing with the old men and now the universe is unraveling, cause people to be eaten away by special effects, buildings to crumble, and electronics to stop working (sometimes). Entropy is accelerated!

Now to save the universe The Doctor has to team up with The Master. They flee back to Earth to an observatory to use the antenna to shoot a data program into a Charged Vacuum Emboitment (whatever that is), but the dish has to be realigned. Once this is done, the Master naturally betrays the Doctor, and broadcasts to the entire universe that they must acknowledge his rule, otherwise the universal collapse will continue.

The Doctor runs to disconnect a cable but falls off to his death, or rather his regeneration.

So this is a pretty weakly-written story that introduces two new companions (Tegan and Nyssa) and a new Doctor (Peter Davison). Some of the ideas are legitimately great but the execution is mostly sloppy and nonsensical. They could have made the recursion loop interesting and dangerous but instead it’s just a couple minutes of “oh no! we’re trapped!” until they move on. The control room of the Logopolans was, in universe, built to model an Earth observatory for what I have to assume is budget reasons, and the Fifth Doctor appearing as a white shrouded figure throughout the episodes is another interesting idea that really only seems to usher them to the next plot point.

Worth watching if you want to see the transition between the doctors, or if you’re a fan of The Master, but otherwise, meh.

Next episode: Castrovalva

February 12, 2026February 22, 2026

No, Eric Does Not Need A Sword

In the 1983 cartoon Dungeons and Dragons, six teenagers were transported from America into “the Realm” and each received a magic weapon and a title from their (tor)mentor, Dungeon Master.

Hank was “Ranger” and was given a magic bow. Sheila was “Thief” and was given a magic cloak. Eric was “Cavalier” and was given a magic shield.

A common complaint for decades now is that Eric the Cavalier should have been given a sword. He is, after all, a cavalier, which is a kind of a knight, and all knights have swords. Sure, granted, although technically cavalier is a mounted knight so maybe he should have a magic saddle? Or a lance? Anyway….

Mark Evanier, who wrote what could be termed the show bible, famously tells the story of his involvement of the series creation on his blog all the way back in a post from 1997. https://www.newsfromme.com/pov/col145-2/

To my knowledge, it’s not precisely stated officially why Eric was given a shield and no characters received a sword. Some maintain that since this was the 1980’s, cartoons weren’t allowed to have actual swords or knives. Well, tell that to He-Man or Lion-O or Blackstar. Also, lightsabers were and still are very popular around that time, if they wanted to give a character a magic sword, they could have done so without making it a sharp blade. That’s how they handled Thundarr the Barbarian, after all.

No, the REAL reason – in my opinion – is that an offensive weapon is antithetical to Eric’s character. Eric is portrayed throughout the series primarily as a coward – a sarcastic and dissenting opinion who calls Dungeon Master on his B.S.

Here’s a quote from Evanier’s development bible:

Interestingly, Evanier also writes that the shield has the power of levitation and propels Eric into battle. This of course never materialized in the series, but what we do see on numerous occasions is that despite Eric’s aversion to put himself in harm’s way – when the chips are down and Eric is the only one who can save the group, he rises to the occasion. On one occasion he even foregoes his greatest wish- to return home – in favor of returning to the hell that is The Realm to help his friends.

In a way, the shield is the perfect item for Eric. Eric uses his sarcasm and braggadocio as a coping mechanism to hide – or to shield – his insecurity. We’ve heard him state in the episode “City on the Edge of Midnight” that his rich father isn’t a great dad. We can infer that despite his wealthy home life, his childhood hasn’t been great. Like many of us, he puts up walls to protect himself from being hurt, and deflects criticism.

And if Eric had a sword? Let’s look at the episode The Dragon’s Graveyard. Eric finds and picks up a magic trident which shoots out lightning, and Eric, startled, drops the dangerous weapon in horror. Eric is not Bobby, who will attack any perceived threat at the drop of Presto’s hat, regardless of the danger. Eric has a mind of his own and he has no interest in physically harming anyone or anything. The only offensive weapon Eric has and needs is his sharp, cutting wit.

Like this kind of stuff? Check out my youtube series in which I, a storyboard artist and Dungeon Master, analyze the cartoon series

…and my 20 Minute Monster drawing series!

December 25, 2025January 7, 2026

20 Minute Monsters – Adapted for Your Publication

You may have seen my 20 Minute Monster series on reddit or facebook or indeed my youtube channel.

Some small publishers have asked me to provide slightly adapted (sometimes just converted to black and white) versions for their publications, which I was happy to do for a nominal fee!

If this is something you think you might like, here are the samples:

ABOLETH – original:

Aboleth adjusted:

STIRGE – original:

Adjusted black and white:

YETI – original

Yeti adjusted:

ACHAIERI – original

Achaieria adjusted

BEHIR – original

Behir adjusted:

CARRION CRAWLER original:

Carrion crawler adjusted:

ETTERCAP – original:

Ettercap adjusted:

I also have some stock art on drivethrurpg, hoping to add more at some point:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/4575/toren-atkinson

December 13, 2025December 13, 2025

Overdue Who Review: The Keeper of Traken

Fourth Doctor, Season 18, 1981

So they took Doctor Who off Tubi but thanks to my good friend and occasional Caustic Soda Podcast guest Allan I was able to continue my journey on DVD. And so:

The Fourth Doctor and Adric are visited on the TARDIS by the wizened Keeper of Traken, who warns that a great evil has come to his planet in the form of a Melkur – a calcified statue. The Keeper is nearing the end of his reign and seeks the Doctor’s help in preventing the evil from taking control of the bio-electronic Source that is the keystone of the Traken Union‘s civilization.

The planet Traken is described as a place of such good and niceness that evil cannot exist there. This isn’t explained, and indeed the opposite is shown as some of the people are greedy and manipulative, though this could be explained by the Keeper about to expire causing a time of tumult. Anyway, the Melkur landed in a garden some time ago and one of the leading body on Traken (Kassia) has tended to its paralyzed, inert form (thanks to the goodness) for years, but in that time she has become twisted by it and now seeks to put it in place of the Keeper. She manipulates the council, and the rising evil is blamed on the Doctor, who is imprisoned, but finds an ally in the science-minded consul Tremas (also the husband of Kassia, and the father of the young lady Nyssa). I thought for sure Nyssa was going to leave the planet at the end of the story and join as a second companion, but I was wrong (but not for long, it seems).

Anyway, spoilers – the eye-laser-shooting Melkur is a vessel for the return of Doctor Who’s version of Moriarty – The Master – and for a time his plan succeeds and he becomes the Keeper. However Adric saves the day by sabotaging the bio-electronic Source. But at the very end The Master takes possession of Tremas (notice what that name is an anagram for) and further evilness is teased in upcoming episodes.

All in all this is a skippable, by-the-numbers episode, The Doctor doesn’t actually do much and there’s not much of interest to look at.

Next: Logopolis – the last Tom Baker episode.

December 13, 2025September 22, 2026