I have finished watching Star Trek Next Generation and Deep Space 9 following a friend’s recommendation. I enjoyed both shows and started watching the other one, Star Trek Voyager.
So far, I’m not finding it as enjoyable as the other two. I want to try to see it through the eyes of someone who enjoys the show, maybe it will also help me understand why it feels different somehow.
The more I’ve been thinking about this, the more I realize that because Voyager (or most trek of that era) isn’t totally serialized, there’s no real reason that you HAVE to watch it sequentially for the first time.
As long as you’re avoiding spoiler episodes, there’s no reason that you can’t just watch some random stand-alone episodes, and I’m confident that watching some of those first will make you want to go back and watch the entire thing to see “how they got there.”
So with that said, if you want to understand my love for Voyager, these are the top ten episodes I would recommend that are stand-alone and don’t contain spoilers and epitomize why I say that Voyager is better than most people give it credit for.
- Living Witness (S4)
- Blink of an Eye (S6)
- One Small Step (S6)
- Timeless (S5)
- Scientific Method (S4)
- The Void (S7)
- Relativity (S5)
- Counterpoint (S5)
- Shattered (S7)
- Deadlock (S2)
There are others that I would put in there, but those would include character spoilers that I’d want to avoid.
I believe if you watch those standalone stories, you’ll get the gist of what people love about Voyager.
Shit does get a little weird after Year of Hell, since they refer to it a lot. But they also refer to it at least once BEFORE that episode because time travel.
True. I avoided any two parter on the list just because two-parters are best when you know the characters a bit more. I tried to limit it to episodes that would be akin to TNG standalone’s like Darmok or Schisms; episodes that are good even without knowing the characters.
It’s the most action oriented Star Trek series. Or was when it was newish, anyway. Stuff is always happening, there are very few political episodes that just consist of talking, they do a bunch of fun shit with the holodecks, and it has an exciting premise.
I had loved Voyager for years before I found out that a lot of fans don’t like it. I don’t care, I still like it a lot. I think Janeway is a terrific captain.
It was Enterprise and Discovery that I thought really, really sucked.
It was still a lot better than whatever was on TV at 8 PM in 1997. That’s pretty much where I’m at with it.
Like the other two, it takes a season or so to find it’s footing. I like a female captain, former enemies working together, and ship out of water stories. The redemptive and maturity arc of Paris, and his friendship with Kim. The Doctor and 7 learning what it is to be human. Chakotay’s beliefs aren’t made fun of, but explored. The hopefulness that even thrown across the galaxy, humans can (most of the time) stay true to their beliefs. That you can overcome your upbringing to become a better person. There’s lots to like.
Jane way and Paris boink as animals. I found that delightfully hilarious.
The cast. That’s what I love about the show. The writing can be uneven and often downright contradictory (they ignore the whole “we have limited photon torpedoes” thing from the pilot pretty much immediately and have fun counting the number of shuttle craft they wind up destroying over the course of the series). But the cast is great, especially after a season or so when everyone has figured out their characters a bit.
I can’t speak for everyone of course, but as someone who genuinely was not fond of DS9 (not because of writing quality or anything like that, it was great for what it was in that regard.)
After DS9, Voyager had the audacity to try to be FUN again. It offered a really good mix of some serious episodes with some downright goofy episodes. For every “Year of Hell” or “Equinox”, you would get an episode where they were attacked by giant viruses, or a good old fashioned holodeck program goes haywire episode.
It wasn’t afraid to dive into Shlock after DS9 tried to be sooooo fucking serious.
To me, that was a breath of fresh air.
Also:
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Janeway is easily the best captain overall. She doesn’t give “Picard Speeches” like Stewart of course, but in every other aspect, her leadership is amazing throughout that series.
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Voyager 2 parters were usually epic. This of course comes from the fact that the CGI had come a long way from the TNG days, but with the exception of Best of Both Worlds, I’d put Year of Hell, Equinox and Scorpion ALL better than any other two parter from any other series.
If your comparison is to DS9 and you want “super serious” than yeah…of course Voyager isn’t going to be for you. But if you want something that isn’t afraid to be a little silly sometimes, Voyager is hella-fun.
picard was too moral compared to sikso and janeway, she was willing to violate more rules because they are so far from home.
Fun Voyager openings, I hear you asking.
This is probably my favourite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIjOifRG-u8
That’s the episode where the Doctor becomes the “Emergency Command Hologram” in his mind, isn’t it?
At the end when the computer magically makes three pips appear on his collar and Janeway just says “nice touch…”
That’s exactly what I mean. Voyager wasn’t afraid to be a little goofy sometimes. They walked that line really really well without delving all the way into “Let’s do a whole musical episode” or anything.
Yes, I think it is. But not the one where he actually does become the ECH?
The Doctor has added a daydreaming protocol and some aliens who have an AI overlord (they can’t do anything without asking it first) manage to survey the Doctors daydreams but not the inside of Voyager, so they believe the Doctors daydreams to be real.
I think Voyager’s more musical episodes (and Robert Picardo himself) have at least a little to do with SNW eventually getting the musical episode.
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Voyager has more and good horror episodes, so if you like those you’ll like VOY. It’s best enjoyed an episode a day rather than binged. Put one on after work l, that’s how I watched it
It depends on how far you’ve gone. Most Star Trek shows of the era took a while to get up to speed.
Voyager has a cadence similar to TNG except that the various species that Voyager interacts with changes over time. After the Kazon, the new species are better designed and fleshed out.
Seven of Nine is a far better designed character than Kes and the writing for her was so much better. It also seems like the show was able to identify the characters that could carry an episode.
The concept of a lone ship without Federation support stuck far away from home is compelling. Throughout the series, they go through some shit.
The best episodes are when the pretty ship is just super-wrecked.
Year of Hell is one. The episode where they discover that the entire ship and crew are replicas and they’re slowly coming apart is another.
This is it for me as well. I’ve always been drawn to the concept of self-sufficiency.
Part of it is that Voyager has the unenviable role of being one of TNG’s two successor shows. The other was DS9, and everything looks bad sitting next to DS9. Part of why DS9 was able to do the wild things that it did was because the writing team had minimal supervision and were allowed to go buckwild- paramount were keeping a closer eye on first TNG, and then Voyager. Because of that, Voyager plays it safe and worships the status quo even when the fiction is begging to go in another direction, and the whole series has this feeling of having been written by committee. This even frustrated the writers, one of whom left the show out of frustration to go write the Battlestar Galactica reboot, which is essentially gritty, serialized Voyager
that said, I watched the whole thing and largely enjoyed it. you kind of have to meet it where it is, and accept that major plot details get glossed over and everyone takes turns holding the idiot ball. for me, the characters are what salvages the underwhelming plot. being a smaller ship, younger characters like Kim and Paris are able to be movers and shakers, giving the show a coming-of-age quality not found again until LDS and Progidy. Janeway is great when she’s not holding the idiot ball, it was really awesome seeing a captain who came up through science instead of command. When the blue or gold shirts give most captains a solution to a problem, they’re glad the problem it solved, but Janeway would get excited about the solution itself, sometimes even finishing Belana’s sentences.
Neelix had never so much as heard of starfleet, and had none of the training or skills even a crewman would need, but his good nature and see-a-need, fill-a-need ethos arguably makes him the most starfleet person on the boat. Kes is similar, with the added twist of dedicating herself to a voyage she won’t live to see the end of.
VOY spoilers
People say it was good that she left because there wasn’t much to do with her character, but to me that’s nonsense. Not being able to see her come to terms with her mortality and how that intersects with her psychic powers was easily the show’s biggest missed opportunity.
the doctor is an interesting inversion of the good idea/meh execution pattern because his concept is unremarkable- essentially a rehash of Data learning to be human, just accidentally and with sarcasm- but the execution was incredible. later on when 7of9 joins the cast, she displaces him as The Data but he remains a main character and takes on a mentorship role which allows him to develop even further
all in all, it’s a show full of then-new and brilliant ideas that regularly fumbles the execution. and that isn’t for everyone, especially with the plethora of other great trek out there. but if you watch it and are able to forgive the not great scenario writing you might enjoy it nonetheless
interesting that voy had so much meddling from the executives, Nutrek has probably even more plus kurtzman agenda, thats why the new shows are sucky.
I think Voyager had the meddling/executive oversight it did because it was used as a carrier to literally (not figuratively) launch a new television network. Voyager premiered as the first show on the brand new “UPN” tv network, a network which would later become today’s “The CW”
Part of why DS9 was able to do the wild things that it did was because the writing team had minimal supervision and were allowed to go buckwild
This does explain the high highs and the low lows.
Ironically, my definition of “the high highs” would be the lighter “hang out on the space station” episodes, and the “low lows” would be the grittier “Section 31 has let us bomb the shit out of civillians, go Prophet! Praise the
gods!wormhole aliens!” which I assume is the stuff that people praise for “realism and moral choices”.I didn’t know that bit about supervision. I didn’t check who the writers were, but even if they were the same, it makes sense that that would play a big role.
Once you get past the Kazon it gets more varied. The Kazon are just terrible and they drag the show down with them.
That being said, some of my personal favorite VOY episodes are in the first few seasons, they just don’t involve the Kazon.
Less Kazon, more Kes.
The kazon were so bad that the borg didn’t consider them worth assimilating, hahahahah.
The only tech the Kazon had, they stole. Although we didn’t know abything about that at first until we finally got introduced to the Trabe in season 2.
I think DS9 was pretty developed already by the end of TNG, so once it started there wasn’t that much left to figure out. This can be seen by the TNG crew visiting DS9 towards the end. TNG, however, felt a little more uncertain in the first season in that the actors didn’t have their characters nailed down yet, and it shows.
I suspect that Voyager might be a bit more like TNG in this regard - the concept was a bit more uncertain when they started. However, it does improve massively as it vows on.
I for one really like the temporal war storyline.
voyager couldve been better, as there are more interesting species in delta quadrant to be explored.
See what you think about this-- I thought TNG’s aesthetics and scripts could be rather bland sometimes, but in terms of acting talent, I found Spiner, Dorn and Stewart’s acting work to be generally superb. Frakes and Burton were also strong (pick your poison of course).
The reason I’m mentioning the above is that I found it almost shocking how mediocre, and almost unlikable most of DS9’s and VOY’s cast were, outside of standouts like Ryan, Picardo and Russ, and to a lesser extent perhaps Auberjonois, Brooks, Shimerman and Mulgrew.
And at the same time, DS9 and VOY had some far more ambitious and arc-type scripts than TNG ever did. Evidently, TNG had the chance to do so with the parasites from “Conspiracy,” but instead shifted them in to being the Borg. Sure, a classic set of villains without question, but also the horror motif of the parasites was mostly lost. A real white-washing in order to maintain a more family-friendly version of the show, I would think, but… well, that’s enough for one comment.
@lunchbox2287@lemmy.world
The first season or two are rough. The Kazon stuff is just… Blah, imo. After that it picks up. The character development, I think, is the best part. Mostly the Doctor, if I’m being honest. Later when Seven joins, her character arc is great, too, and while she was definitely supposed to be sex appeal, her actress, Jeri Ryan, crushes it as a character and not just a sex symbol.
I’m guessing the whole Neelix thing is throwing you? He’s definitely incredibly grating, but he’ll weirdly grow on you as the show progresses.
In my opinion, it’s definitely the weakest of the three you mention, but it still has its merits. Even after we leave the Kazon stuff behind, you’ll get a one off episode here or there that just falls flat.
I’d suggest trying to power through a bit longer to see if you can pick up anything you start enjoying. And if not, there’s no shame in not finishing. Not every series hits for everyone and that’s okay.
I’m halfway through season 2. I am interested in seeing where they take some characters. I think your suggestion makes sense, I’ll give it a bit more time, especially considering some of the surprises in the comments below.
I loved it when it was new, but I’m not sure I’d watch it now.
The idea I got from it was, it was supposed to be like a cross between The Next Generation, with a Starfleet ship exploring the unknown, and Deep Space Nine, with epic arcs as opposed to self-contained episodes. Essentially it seemed like they wanted another TNG but in the DS9 format. They also wanted to try having a female captain and I think they were going for that for a while. They gave us a Black captain and that went over well enough, so they were going with Roddenberry’s vision of inclusion and diversity. Not everyone agreed at the time, that a crew would follow a woman. Now it seems like it wouldn’t be a problem, but 30 years ago?
I liked the premise of being stuck in the Delta Quadrant trying to get home, until Janeway started refusing shortcuts to get the ship home during their lifetime. The episode “The Omega Directive” where she doomed a pre-warp civilisation to never being able to go to the stars made me dislike Janeway, though honestly the directive, which overrides the Prime Directive, was set up by Starfleet. She was just following orders. And the alternative would have been to allow a “competitor” to warp drive that would have made warp drive through that system impossible (due to the omega particles). The solution should have been to just teach them warp drive, but then the Prime Directive says you can’t do that, so she left them in the stone age or something. IMO the worst episode. That one everyone hates with the forced evolution? That was just dumb. Omega Directive had a lot of thought put into it and it ended up being stupid and a slap in the face to anyone who supported Starfleet.
I was kinda ace-leaning in my teens, so Seven’s outfit didn’t do much for me. Once I heard Jeri Ryan didn’t like the “cat suits” they put her in, I really started disliking how the show was being run. They did a similar thing to Mariana Sirtis (Troi) on Next Generation.
I always liked Neelix, too. I thought he was funny, and his self-appointed position as “morale officer” is where I saw myself if I were on the ship. Sure, we all wanted to be Chakotay or Tuvok or, more accurately Tom or Harry. We all (straight guys I mean) argued over who we wanted to be with, between Torres, Kes, Seven, and even Janeway herself (my pick). No one ever said they wanted to be Neelix. Nobody liked him. But Neelix was always my boy. And then when that kid showed up and he was helping her, and she was afraid of Seven and he showed her that there was nothing to be afraid of, that’s when I realised Neelix was me on the ship. So yeah, Neelix is kinda why I like Voyager. And Janeway. And Tuvok, because while Data was cool, he wasn’t quite Spock, and DS9 didn’t really have such a character. Odo maybe? Hardly. I think the “logical character” got shuffled between Dax, Odo, Kira, Bashir, O’Brien sometimes… there basically wasn’t one. I loved Tuvok though. Data’s his own character, but I liked the Vulcans better. So, much as I think I’d hang out with LaForge on the Ent-D, I felt that Voyager was more “my crew.” They were the misfits, and they made it work. They also felt the most like family to one another, IMO.
The show did have a lot of problems. I won’t argue against them. It also had Blink of an Eye which is easily a Top 5 Trek episode (along with DS9’s In the Pale Moonlight, TNG’s The Inner Light, TOS’s The City on the Edge of Forever, TNG’s Best of Both Worlds, TNG’s All Good Things, DS9’s The Visitor… which ones take the top 5 spots varies, but The Inner Light and In the Pale Moonlight stay in the top 3 always.
“Computer, delete that entire personal log.”
