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“Non Sequitur” Kim ends up in an alternate timeline where he and Paris weren’t on Voyager. Despite being very eager to get home, Kim tries to get back to his time line. It was nice to see San Fran before the Breen blowed it up real good in S7 of DS9. It was nice to see Kim do something useful for a change. He’s an interesting character but I don’t think the writers ever figured out what do with him.

“Twisted” the ships gets twisted and discombobulated by you guessed it, a spatial anomaly. The Doctor fending off an amorous holodeck projection was kinda fun but otherwise, it was just ok. I do get the feeling that Tim Russ and Robert Picardo have the best handle on their characters at this point in the series.

“Parturition” Janeway’s new hair. Is it too late to wish that Paris killed Neelix during their ridiculous food fight? The whole episode was Paris, Neelix, and a baby dinosaur. One the one hand, we get rid of Neelix’s jealousy thing and Paris’s tacky flirtation with Kes, but on the other hand, the whole episode was Paris, Neelix, and a baby dinosaur. Jonathan Frakes directed the episode well but it’s difficult to overcome a crappy script.

“Persistence of Vision” Janeway’s bun is back, I guess I’m watching the episodes out of order. An alien incapacitates Voyager by manifesting the crew’s innermost desires. I have to say I always thought Dawson had better chemistry with Beltran than McNeill but this was the only time Torres and Chakotay got together. I do believe this is the last time we’ve seen Janeway’s gothic holonovel and I’m ok with that. Seeing the Doctor shrink to the size of a garden gnome was funny and was the highlight of the episode.

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“Tatoo” the Doctor gives himself the flu and Chakotay resolves his daddy issues. In a storyline similar to The X-Files, this episode posits that extraterrestrials visited earth and interacted with Native American nations. Both stories were interesting but completely uncomplimentary. Chakotay’s story should have been expanded to an entire episode and the Doctor’s flu should have been moved to a separate episode. Question: when the shuttle craft went down to the planet they experienced all sorts of weather issues during their descent. They finally figure out that there is an intelligent presence controlling the weather and preventing them from landing. In light of that, why would Janeway think it would be a good idea to try and land the entire ship on the planet?

“Cold Fire” Gary Graham visits the episode and we meet the female caretaker. It’s a Kes centered episode and it’s ok except for the loud shriek Kes emits when Tuvok was injured. It was interesting to hear that Voyager is regarded as the ship of death based how they’ve interacted with other people in the Delta Quadrant. All that power the female caretaker and Tanis had, they couldn’t read Janeway’s thoughts to see what actually happened to the banjo caretaker? That’s just lazy.

“Maneuvers” so Seska turns up stealing technology. The relationship between Chakotay and Seska reminds me of the relationship between Sisko and Eddington though the VOY writers added the sexual hostility. This episode also reminds us of the Maquis roots of Chakotay and Torres which is one of the reasons it’s an interesting episodes and that’s saying a lot considering I never cared for the Kazon as adversaries. Once again at the end of this episode, we have Janeway disciplining a senior officer for actually doing the right thing in the wrong way. Much like the situation with Tuvok in “Prime Factors,” this was more about personal issues than with what actually happened. I don’t recall Janeway or anyone else actually coming up with a relatively safe solution to getting the transporter tech back. Seska played them quite well and Chokotay handled the situation. This wasn’t a threat to her authority and it didn’t make it harder for Janeway to do her job. If anything, the whole, Seska impregnated herself with Chokotay’s DNA at the end of the episode made everyone on the ship cognizant of the fact that this whole thing was personal. In “Cold Fire” Tanis said that Voyager was known as the ship of death that really should have told Janeway that she can’t operate this ship in a ridged Federation manner but this episode showed us she didn’t get the memo.

“Resistance” so Janeway and the crew beam down to a random planet to obtain some vital substance they need. The crew knows that the oppressive planetary government doesn’t want outsiders on the planet but they go and get their substance from the local resistance movement. Umm, just out of curiosity, how is this different from what Tuvok did in “Prime Factors”? It’s ok to bypass the recognized government as long as Janeway approves of it ahead of time? Can we say hypocrisy boys and girls. At least in “Prime Factors” no one got hurt, here, Tuvok got tortured, an innocent man was gunned down, and they damn near exposed an entire resistance movement.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Prototype” Torres helps a race of robots procreate. Data gets a shout out which reminds me, in “Tattoo” we learn that Sulu sponsored Chakotay’s entry into the academy. It’s a small universe. Aside from the fact that we get to see Torres flex her engineering muscles, there nothing too interesting to see here.

“Alliances” finally, Chakotay mans up and tells Janeway that business as usual isn’t going to work in the Delta Quadrant. Saying she would destroy the ship rather than violating the Prime Directive doesn’t make Janeway look strong, it makes her look inflexible and downright stupid. Chakotay asks her the key question: are you doing what’s best for the crew and the answer thus far in the series is not so much. Tuvok backs Chakotay up and they try to forge an alliance with Seska but that falls apart pretty quickly. We get the historical background on the Kazon who were oppressed and then overthrew the Trabe. All of the first majes agree meet with Janeway and the Trabe to discuss a peace treaty but it turns out that the Trabe used the meeting to assassinate the majes. How very Godfather III of them, can’t trust anyone these days. Instead of framing this as a failure to properly vet potential allies, Janeway views this as a vindication of her ideas for Voyager to go it alone. That won’t turn out too well if I remember future storylines correctly.

“Threshold” the episode where Paris and Janeway turn into slugs. Nuff said. Quite possibly the worse Trek episode ever and that’s saying a lot.

“Meld” I wonder if Brad Dourif enjoys playing serial killers on TV (see Babylon 5 and The X-Files). Tuvok gets to investigate another murder but gets bent out of shape when the murderer doesn’t have a motive. What, they didn’t have sociopaths in the 24th century. Part of me really wished Tuvok had strangled Neelix to death but it was just a simulation. What could have been a pedantic episode turned into a fascinating meditation on violence due to Russ’s and Dourif’s performances.

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You should do a blog of this instead of here, it would serve your purposes better.

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Why? I'm enjoying following along with her re-watching here.

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There are fewer trolls here than on a regular blog. Plus, I thought folks here would be interested.

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so am I

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me three
I have enough sites to try to keep track of as it is. I like being able to do this here

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Threshold
since they had the ability to undo the genetic changes why not keep trying to achieve controlled warp 10?


Alliances
those ship weapons sure were weak. That entire room and everything in it should have been vaporized

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That's a darn good question that the writers conveniently glossed over. I was so blinded by the horridness of the slug issue that I dismissed the "We can achieve warp 10 and get ourselves home right now" issue as lazy writing.

Everything about the Kazon and the Trabe was just weak and I'll be so psyched when I don't have to watch them anymore. The whole "the Kazon were oppressed" history was supposed to make the audience understand and maybe even sympathize with the Kazon but really, did anyone care about them at all at any point during the first two seasons? As a general rule, Janeway should remember: if you're going to grab allies, you should make sure that they are at least as powerful as you are. Oh and make sure that Neelix isn't recommending them because that's a hint that things won't go well.

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“Dreadnought” was a far more interesting Torres episode than “Prototype.” At least in this episode, there’s a concrete reason for Torres wanting/needing to work on a piece of tech. We assume she worked on the robot because it was new and shiny, here, the missile was her creation so it made sense for her to be so passionate about fixing it.

“Death Wish” our first Q episode where another Q wants asylum so he can commit suicide. The moral dilemma is interesting: do you allow someone to spend the rest of eternity in prison or do you allow them to commit suicide. We already know from the events of “Mind Meld” that Janeway wants no part in death: she wouldn’t participate in corporal punishment for our sociopathic murder even when the murderer in question was willing to die for his crimes. We see Riker show up but he’ll have no memory of being on Voyager. Here’s what I don’t get: when Q came back to admit that he helped Quinn commit suicide, why doesn’t it occur to Janeway to ask Q to take them home? He already tried to bribe her with that promise so it’s within his grasp. Hell, just ask for a lift halfway or even just get them out of Kazon space (which after almost two years of traveling you’d think they’d be out of by now). Here’s another question: why didn’t Janeway take the bribe? What happened to “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” She could have told Quinn about Q’s bribe and either a) rule in Q’s favor stating that she has to think of her crew first and foremost or b) ask Quinn to send them home before ruling in his favor. Obviously Q wouldn’t do it but the fact that Janeway didn’t even ask seems a bit lazy. This episode isn’t as satisfying as DS9’s “In the Pale Moonlight” but it’s a decent Voyager episode. Even though I’m all about showing the consequences of ones decisions, I would have loved it if the VOY writers hadn’t brought Q back for any more episodes.

“Lifesigns” the one where the Doctor falls in love with a Vidian. It was a sweet episode which gave Picardo a chance to stretch his legs creatively and it also showed a different side to our prickly doctor.

“Investigations” I was so happy when this episode aired. The subplots in the previous few episodes of Paris being a total slacker and belting Chakotay got annoying really, really, quickly. The fact that Janeway, Paris, and Chakotay were setting a trap for our friendly traitor made Paris’s previous transgressions tolerable. Telling the episode through Neelix’s POV would not have been my first choice. This is one instance where the studio stepping in was a good thing (they wanted the writers to reverse some of the Neelix scenes). The episode probably would have been stronger from Paris’s or even Chakotay’s POV especially since the latter didn’t know what was going on. That second decision was really a low blow. Janeway and Tuvok said they didn’t want to put Chakotay in the position of having to investigate a former Maquis. You mean like what he did with Seska? He’s done it before and he’d do it again if they had given him the chance. All this did was show Chakotay that neither Janeway nor Tuvok trust him or have faith in him. I would have been really pissed.

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“Deadlock” the techno babble regarding how and why we ended up with two Voyagers wasn’t very appealing but the ethics presented in this episode were interesting. VOY1 is attempting to fix their ship but in doing so they inadvertently beat the living crap out of VOY2 and as a result Kim gets sucked into space and Ensign Wildman’s baby dies too. Realizing that both ships can’t survive, Janeway 1 decides to destroy her ship so the other can survive. Nobel gesture. The Vidians arrive and completely overtake VOY2. Janeway 2 realizes her crew can’t survive so destroys VOY 2. Janeway 2’s decision to send Kim and Wildman over to VOY1 echoes what happened in the DS9 episode “Visionary.” Question though: on ever other Trek show to date, it took at least two people to initiate and/or cancel self-destruct procedures. On Voyager, Janeway had done it twice now all by her lonesome. That seems like a really bad idea in any circumstance.

“Innocence” Tuvok counsel’s a group of three children who are aging Benjamin Button style. Again, this isn’t a bad episode. There’s some nice character development for Tuvok as we get to see him in father mode (we get to hear Russ sing too). It’s not a great episode either – it’s just average.

“The Thaw” so Michael McKean plays fear in the form of a demented clown. What a random episode. For once I have to disagree with sfdebris who scored this episode 9 out of 10. I agree that McKean’s performance was excellent: he balanced over-the-top humor with terrifying menace. The exchanges between the clown and the doctor were well-done: how does fear interact with someone who doesn’t feel fear and how does the doctor, who doesn’t give a crap about anyone else’s emotions when lives are at stake, deal with pure emotion. The episode just doesn’t speak to me and I can’t really explain why. It could be as sfdebris points out that this episode feels like an Original Series episode. I don’t expect a VOY episode to look and feel like a TOS episode. The whimsy factor just feels a tad out of place. The final scene where Janeway conquers fear is again well-done and ending the episode with fear saying drat as the screen fades to black was the best way to go.

“Tuvik” Wow talk about having a bad day: Tuvok and Neelix are physically merged during a transporter accident. Wow, I’m not sure who got the shorter end of this stick. Once again we have a moral dilemma: after Tuvik has been walking around the ship for several weeks, Janeway has to make a decision about whether or not separating him back into Tuvok and Neelix constitutes murder. Obviously Janeway opts to separate the two even though the Doctor declines to perform the procedure. Here’s my issue, I have no problem with the writers having Janeway do this, there was no easy answer to this issue. What I think was lazy writing is the lack of acknowledgement of the fact that Janeway’s decision makes her a hypocrite. It flies in the face of other decisions Janeway has made thus far in the series. In “Phage,” Janeway was willing to let Neelix die rather than extract the lungs from the Vidiian who stole them in the first place. In “Meld” Janeway rejects executing Suder after he murdered another crew member. In those situations, the Vidiian and Suder did something to warrant an execution but here, Tuvik is innocent. Janeway’s facial expression at the end of the episode shows that she feels guilty but it would have made her look like less of a hypocrite if she admitted that she did it because she felt closer to Tuvok and Neelix than she did toward Tuvik. That is the bottom line of her decision and it would have made the episode stronger if they had owned up to it.

“Resolutions” Janeway and Chakotay are quarantined on a planet after encountering some random and unexplained virus. The episode delves into Janeway and Chakotay’s relationship but all of that goodwill and closeness is forgotten the minute the episode is finished. So much for character growth. I don’t quite buy the idea that the crew completely disrespected Tuvok as a captain and damn near mutinied over getting Janeway and Chakotay back. So much for that Starfleet discipline.

“Basics Pt 1 & 2” Chakotay’s a father and since they believe Seska got her throat slit, Voyager decides to go after the baby. Because they are the most gullible people in the quadrant, the crew gets completely played by the Kazon and end up marooned on a random planet without the ship or any technology. Their only hope lies with Paris, the Doctor and Suder, our sociopathic serial killer. The trio do a decent job and manage to fool the Kazon and retake the ship though neither Suder nor Seska are alive by the end of the two-parter. The planet our crew end up on is complete with volcanic activity, primitive natives and what looks like a bad CGI dragon. At first I thought it would have been a good idea for the writers to leave the crew on the planet for several episodes but on reflection, I don’t think that would have helped matters. On the plus side, the Doctor figures out that Seska’s kid isn’t Chakotay’s so at least there’s that.

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sfdebris reposted his Initiations review
http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionated...review-6228561
if nothing else it's worth it to watch the first 30 seconds for his ripping on Chakota's statement that is full of inconsistancy

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I generally hated Voyager and gave up about halfway through the run, but I do have a soft spot for this episode.

It's just so completely off the wall and bizarre that I can't help but sort of like it. The thing plays like Grant Morrison took mushrooms and wrote a Star Trek episode.

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The sfdebris review of "Initiations" was hilarious - though most of his reviews of bad episodes are. Jos-da-man, you're on your own with "Threshold." It is bizarre and off the wall and without any scientific basis whatsoever. I tried to like it in a MST3K fashion but I just couldn't.

“Flashback” the second 30th anniversary Trek episode. We flash back to the events in “The Undiscovered Country” with Tuvok serving onboard the Excelsior with Capt. Sulu. It was nice to see George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney but this episode isn’t as good or nearly as much fun as “Trials and Tribble-ations.” The latter episode felt way more inclusive since the entire DS9 cast was involved but in “Flashback,” it’s essentially a Tuvok and Janeway episode. I completely understand why Nichelle Nichols declined to appear because I bet her cameo would have lasted for exactly two minutes. It’s still a better than average VOY episode though and we get some key background info on Tuvok.

“False Profits” we finally found out what happened to those two Ferengi in TNG’s “the Price”. Janeway did all sorts of gymnastics to justify interfering on this planet. Tuvok points out that the Ferengi are not members of the Federation and the Prime Directive forbids them from interfering in pre-warp societies. This means Voyager should have just gone on their merry way and tracked their wormhole. Kidnapping didn’t work and deception didn’t work (at least not at first). If they had left the Ferengi alone they would have made it through the wormhole and been home. Once again, Janeway, someone should remind you that your primary responsibility should be to get your crew home: you keep forgetting that and screwing everyone over.

“Sacred Ground” is basically the idiot’s guide to faith. What didn’t make sense at the end of the episode was Chakotay’s reluctance to accept faith. As stereotypical as the portrayal has been thusfar, the writers have made Chakotay a man of faith so the fact that he so easily dismissed Janeway’s spiritual journey and the alien’s faith seemed like an odd choice. Overall, not bad for McNeill’s directoral debut.

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The sci-fi challenge started yesterday so I'm going to try to speed up the viewing.

“Flashback” the second 30th anniversary Trek episode. We flash back to the events in “The Undiscovered Country” with Tuvok serving onboard the Excelsior with Capt. Sulu. It was nice to see George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney but this episode isn’t as good or nearly as much fun as “Trials and Tribble-ations.” The latter episode felt way more inclusive since the entire DS9 cast was involved but in “Flashback,” it’s essentially a Tuvok and Janeway episode. I completely understand why Nichelle Nichols declined to appear because I bet her cameo would have lasted for exactly two minutes. It’s still a better than average VOY episode though and we get some key background info on Tuvok.

“False Profits” we finally found out what happened to those two Ferengi in TNG’s “the Price”. Janeway did all sorts of gymnastics to justify interfering on this planet. Tuvok points out that the Ferengi are not members of the Federation and the Prime Directive forbids them from interfering in pre-warp societies. This means Voyager should have just gone on their merry way and tracked their wormhole. Kidnapping didn’t work and deception didn’t work (at least not at first). If they had left the Ferengi alone they would have made it through the wormhole and been home. Once again, Janeway, someone should remind you that your primary responsibility should be to get your crew home: you keep forgetting that and screwing everyone over.

“Sacred Ground” is basically the idiot’s guide to faith. What didn’t make sense at the end of the episode was Chakotay’s reluctance to accept faith. As stereotypical as the portrayal has been thusfar, the writers have made Chakotay a man of faith so the fact that he so easily dismissed Janeway’s spiritual journey and the alien’s faith seemed like an odd choice. Overall, not bad for McNeill’s directorial debut.

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“The Chute” Kim and Paris are sent to jail for a crime they didn’t commit. I’m sure the Paris/Kim slash writers had fun with this episode but otherwise, it was just ok. Again we get some of Janeway’s hypocrisy: she won’t allow the Akritirians to board her ship to look for evidence but when Voyager finds the ship that may be responsible for the crime, she gets pissed when the captain won’t allow her on his ship. She bogarts her way onto the ship anyway.

“The Swarm” so Voyager invades the space of a race of giant bugs who they can’t communicate with. The B-story involving the Doctor developing the computer equivalent of Alzheimer’s disease was far more interesting. The question of whether the crew can or should reset the Doctor to his original programming is certainly a moral dilemma but of course, the story was completely dropped at the end of the episode.

“Remember” a holocaust analogy that was originally supposed to be a TNG episode. Seriously, VOY is in its 3rd season, it’s a little late in the game to still be drawing from TNG. Dawson essentially had to play two characters in the episode. Gotta love how Janeway decides to invoke the Federation rules here and ignore a historical genocide.

“Future’s End Pts 1 & 2” so VOY travels to 1996 and meets Ed Begley Jr. and Sarah Silverman. So all of our computer technology is due to future tech being stolen. Say, wasn’t the Eugenics War supposed to be going on in the 1990s? The story could have lived without the racist militia group capturing Chakotay and Torres but at least Janeway had the presence of mind to ask the time ship guy to return them home – even if the answer was no. The Doctor also got his mobile emitter so he can roam around the ship. Why exactly would Chakotay assume he knew where the torpedo bay was since the Doctor has been in exactly two locations on the ship before now? The two-parter was kinda fun.

“Warlord” Kes’s body is taken over by a dictator’s consciousness. Everything about Kes’s character in this episode has a DS9 mirror universe feel to it right down to the outfit she wears (it looks a lot like the intendant’s uniform).

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“The Q and the Grey” I asked the question when I watched TNG’s “Q Who,” so Amanda’s parents had no problem conceiving and producing a Q. Once we get to Voyager, Q somehow forgets how to procreate so he has to sexually harass Janeway and both Q at the end of the episode kept saying procreation had never been done. Actually, come to think of it, where is Amanda? If bringing new blood is the point, she is still a youngster. Lots of continuity issues here. I have to say that while

“Death Wish” was interesting, I think in “Grey,’ Janeway should have taken the Sisko approach to Q – knock him on his ass and tell him don’t come back. Q calling Neelix a bar rodent was funny but Chakotay admitting to being jealous of Q was random. I do wonder whether Janeway could have said “hey, since I just helped end your civil war, would one of you omnipotent beings mind sending me and my crew home?” Oh, and the puppy was adorable.

“Macrocosm” question: if the crew is incapacitated and the ship is adrift, I understand that Janeway’s first priority should be to find out what happened. Instead of walking around the ship trying to get to the bridge, wouldn’t it have made more sense to go to sickbay first and ask the Doctor? If she had, both she and Neelix could have avoided being infected and probably could have killed the macro viruses a lot sooner. It’s basically Janeway channeling Ripley throughout the episode. The CG in this episode looks really cheesy.

“Fair Trade” Neelix turns into a drug smuggler while trying to obtain a map. Turns out Neelix doesn’t know anything about their journey from here on in and he thinks Janeway will toss him aside since he won’t be useful anymore. If only that were true. This was one of the better Neelix episodes because even though he was still completely annoying and clueless, in this instance, there were reasons for his behavior.

“Alter Ego” Kim falls in love with a holodeck character and goes to Tuvok for help in purging his emotions. That’s quite the bold step and it’s a complete overreaction. Then things get all Fatal Attraction with the program falling for Tuvok and taking over the ship. Yikes! It was nice to see Tuvok and Kim interact since they are two characters who don’t normally share screen time. Picardo directed this ep.

“Coda” so we’re stuck in a time loop where Janeway keeps dying. I think this episode was an interesting meditation on death and the afterlife until we got to the end. Blaming her experience on a malevolent alien seemed unnecessary. It would have been completely plausible to have Janeway’s hallucinations be the product of her being near death.

“Blood Fever” a new take on the classic “aliens made them do it” troupe which is so popular in fan fic. Torres gets infected with Pon Farr and damn near sexually assaults Paris. You know, when this episode first aired I didn’t have a huge problem with it: it was clear at this point that the writers were going to pair Torres and Paris so this finally opened that door. When I watch it now, I see so many problems. First, I thought the ritual fight was supposed to be to the death. Tuvok doesn’t mention that when they’re on the planet and Vorik and Torres are about to engage in fisticuffs. Also, if I remember “Amok Time” correctly, if Vorik won the fight he would have the right to mate with Torres. Would Tuvok and Chakotay have allowed that to happen even though Torres made it clear she didn’t want to be with him? I know that Paris is the ho of the crew but seriously, Tuvok was ready to force him to have sex with Torres, if the positions were reversed, there’s no way Tuvok or anyone else would tell a woman to suck it up and have sex against their will. The fact that this episode was written by a woman just makes me roll my eyes and go really, you couldn’t figure out a less ichy way of conveying that Torres can be sexual and tough at the same time. Didn’t know that Garek directed this episode and the dead Borg drone we saw at the end of the episode was a nice intro into future storylines.

“Unity” Chakotay and a red shirt (it’s actually yellow but you get the idea) encounter a group of ex-Borg who want to create a new collective. Despite swearing they’re nothing like the Borg, in true Borg fashion, they take over Chakotay when they don’t get what they want. You can’t trust anyone these days. This would have been the one instance where Janeway’s default to violence mode would have been justified: seriously, you took over my first officer, activated a Borg cube putting my entire ship in danger, and you have revived the assimilation portion of your Borg ID: I’m blowing your colony to bits.

“Darkling” the Doctor goes over to the dark side and Kes gets over breaking up with Neelix by hitting it with some alien traveler. Picardo can crew up scenery with the best of them but watching the Doctor go all Mr. Hyde wasn’t terribly interesting.

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the CG is bad, and even worse is the actors trying to pretend to be interacting with an object when it was obvious they had nothing to react to in person
I remember Janeway going hand to hand with one in a corridor and it looked super fake

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What makes it worse is that according ot Memory Alpha, Mulgrew did have a physical prop to act against so either the effects dept did a really crappy job or her acting was just that bad (or some combo of the two):

The scene near the end of this episode where one of the macroviruses pins Janeway to the deck, as she struggles to protect herself from it, is one of the sequences that – although involving the CGI macrovirus – was filmed with on-set elements that stood-in for the alien. Dan Curry noted, "In order to enable us to have an animated virus moving around and threatening her, we planned to do that with a computer-generated virus." One of the on-set elements used was a full-scale stinger mock-up that the effects team constructed. Curry recalled, "Just out of frame, I was standing with [the mock-up], making sure I didn't hit her in the face, but poking near her so Kate could avoid [...] it. When [the scene] was all done, we had a lot of laughs because [the mock-up is] certainly bizarre and very unpleasant-looking." The same scene continues with Janeway stabbing the attacking macrovirus. Regarding the filming of this moment, Curry explained, "So Kate could have something to stab and let go of the knife, what we did was mounted a Styrofoam ball painted blue, on a stick. So I stood there holding the ball on a stick and then Kate could stab the ball and let go of the knife, so we could have the real knife in Kate's hand sticking inside a computer-generated virus." (Red Alert: Amazing Visual Effects, VOY Season 3 DVD special features)

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“Rise” you’d think after the events in “Tuvik” that Tuvok and Neelix would never go on an away mission together again. Question, if you know a lack of oxygen is going to be a problem, and Neelix is the only person who knows how to pilot their ship, why would he wait until the last minute to try to teach Tuvok, or anyone else for that matter, how to fly the ship? Since Neelix almost got Tuvok killed, hopefully they won’t be paired on any more away missions. This was an unpleasant episode.

“Favorite Son” Harry Kim’s wet dream: he lands on a planet that’s 90% female and they all want nothing more than to make him happy in every sense of the word. Unfortunately the ladies want to kill him too so that’s a tough choice. It sounds like this episode was a case of too many cooks spoiling the stew but whatever the reason, it was a bad episode – the third in a row.

“Before and After” Kes is traveling backward through time. Aside from Picardo’s hair piece, I enjoyed the episode, particularly when compared to the previous three episodes. Alternate histories can be fun and since Kes leaves the show, none of what she saw can come true.

“Real Life” the Doctor creates a family and things don’t go as planned. It was nice to see Paris be the one to grow up and tell the Doctor he had to go back and face the death of his daughter – at least Paris is experiencing some character growth in anticipation of events coming down the pike. On the other hand, this episode suffers from the same issue as TNG’s “Inner Light.” I have no desire to imagine what it’s like to lose a child but the impact of this episode is undercut by the fact that the Doctor never mentions what happens again. If his daughter’s death wasn’t going to impact him in any way then the Doctor was correct: there was no reason for him to return to the program and experience it. Maybe the writers planned for the events in this episode to actual contribute to some character development down the line but if not, then the events of the episode were just cheap and unnecessary.

“Distant Origin” what happens with dinosaurs evolve. In Voyager’s universe and in the real world, some folks won’t acknowledge science until it walks up and bites them in the butt.

“Displaced” Voyager crew is beamed off the ship one by one. Ingenious: you can take over a ship or colony without firing a single shot. I’m guessing the real purpose of this episode was to throw Torres and Paris together and placate the shippers. Their bickering is starting to annoy me so I wish they would hop into bed already.

“Worst Case Scenario” so Tuvok’s dormant Maquis mutiny on Voyager holonovel is discovered and beloved by the crew. It was weird to see Seska back into her Bajoran makeup with new hair and new outfits. This was a lot of fun even though the all-powerful holographic Seska who reprogrammed the novel to do everything but bake cookies was a bit far fetched. This episode also showed a glimpse of the Janeway I actually like: she could have been all huffy about the crew accessing the program but not only does she understand that it’s all in good fun, she actually wants the program expanded. She is a much more relate-able character when the writers don’t make her this know-it-all inflexible hardass.

“Scorpion” now that’s how you start an episode: we see two Borg cubes going through their monologue and then getting blowed up real good. Welcome to the story Species 8472. We start the episode with Janeway and Chakotay being friendly and relying on each other for support but when Janeway decides to make a deal with the Borg, Chakotay is not towing the line. Janeway’s reaction to Chakotay’s honesty was completely out of line. If your first officer can’t be honest the he/she is useless. Voyager isn’t a freaking collective, Chakotay made it clear he will carry out your orders even if he doesn’t agree with you. Part II beings the sexing up of Trek with the departure of Kes and the inclusion of Seven. Kes was never my favorite character but that was only because I never got the sense that the writers could figure out what to do with the character. Species 8472 retreated from the Delta Quadrant and it turned out that Chakotay was right: the Borg tried to screw them the minute they could.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“The Gift” our official transition from Kes to Seven. I know the writers were originally going to get rid of Kim but I’m glad they didn’t. They really should have gotten rid of Neelix. Instead Kes, who was a far more interesting character, basically turned into the Traveler and threw Voyager out of Borg space. We see more of Janeway’s hypocrisy when she talks about how humans value individuality and free will but tells Seven even if she wants to return to the collective, she can’t. Janeway even tells Seven that she knows Borg who were removed from the collective who were able to thrive after a transition. Umm, I remember that episode and that’s not what happened. In fact, they formed a new collective and forced a ton of people to join it. Don’t get me started on Seven’s outfit.

“Day of Honor” they really need to get Torres and Paris together because the bickering is making these episodes unbearable. Did Janeway really think that alien species they met that had dealings with the Borg would be all happy when they saw Seven. Hell, even members of her own crew who lost family to the Borg weren’t going to be excited about Seven’s presence. Way to think about crew morale there Janeway.

“Nemesis” Chaoktay is brainwashed to fight in a war. Not quite as bad as the Trek film with the same name but not very good either. The discussion about the power of propaganda was interesting but the execution of the idea was missing something.

“Revulsion” Torres and the Doctor are trapped with a psychotic hologram and Kim doesn’t have sex with Seven. I wonder has Garrett Wang managed to live that down.

“The Raven” Seven’s Borg implants start to reassert themselves and she hauls ass back to the collective. When Tuvok mentions that Seven may resist Janeway authorizes lethal force instead of simply letting her go back to the Borg which is what she’s wanted to do for five episodes now. As it is whenever a new character is added to an established show, the new character monopolizes time to the detriment of other characters. The writers are developing Seven way too quickly she was out of the collective for three episodes and they had her cracking a joke and we get her backstory here. There are characters that have been on this show for three years that we know less about. This episode should have taken place much later. They did change the costume a bit but the objectification is still there. Way to keep it classy and empowering Voyager.

“Scientific Method” extremely creepy episode where the crew is being experimented on without their knowledge or consent. I wonder whether Janeway’s crappy behavior in this episode was only due to the needles being shoved in her cranium. She’s a cranky little lab rat but then again, I would be too.

“Year of Hell” these two episodes highlight everything that Voyager did right and everything it got wrong. The premise of the episodes was solid and should have been sustained over more than two episodes. I don’t think it could have gone an entire season like they suggested but four or five episodes would’ve been awesome. Since the crew is so far away from home we understand that the ship is going to sustain damage and this episode reminded us of that. The f**king reset button the writers hit at the end of the episode is infuriating. They could have destroyed the time ship without destroying Voyager and then spend the next several episodes with Voyager making alliances and repairing itself. That was the biggest disappointment with the entire series: the constant resets. There weren’t any ramifications for their decisions which diminished the drama and suspense of the show.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

holy crap, I just realized you're halfway through voyager and this hasn't been posted yet
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...t234/reset.jpg

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

Yep, that graphic sums it up.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Random Thoughts” this episode seems a lot like the TNG episode “Justice.” Note to Starfleet: if you’re going to spend any amount of time on a planet directly after first contact, you might want to ask them for a list of their rules and regulations so we can avoid these criminal misunderstandings. Here, if you’re dealing with a planet of telepaths that outlaw violent thoughts, Torres probably shouldn’t be granted shore leave.

“Concerning Flight” I adore John Rhys-Davies but the whole Leonardo Di Vinci’s day’s out theme was completely uninteresting. When the writer doesn’t even like the episode you know you’ve got problems.

“Mortal Coil” Neelix dies but doesn’t stay dead unfortunately. He has a crisis of faith as his afterlife did not conform to his long held beliefs. The story is interesting and the execution was solid it just would have been a stronger episode if Neelix were not the focus of the episode. We get to see Naomi Wildman for the first time since her birth.

“Waking Moments” the crew is having nightmares and has to resort to lucid dreaming. There was an awesome episode of Ed that dealt with lucid dreaming but this wasn’t nearly as good (does anyone else remember that show). Going back to “Revulsion,” seriously, Kim’s nightmare is that Seven wants to have sex with him. Wang is never living this character down. If I want trippy discussions of reality vs dreaming I’ll watch Inception or The Matrix (which I might do since the sci-fi challenge is going on).

“Message in a Bottle” the Doctor gets transmitted to the Alpha Quadrant onto a ship commandeered by Romulans. I know Voyager was desperate to get a message to Starfleet but was sending your only medical professional off of the ship a good idea. In any event, this episode is hilarious. Andy Dick and Robert Picardo had great chemistry. We also meet the Hirogen for the first time – if memory serves, that will not end well.

“Hunters” the scene when Janeway starts reading Starfleet’s message and realizes that they’re letters from home was well done. Having Neelix read other people’s letters shows you just how rude the character is but having Tuvok eventually succumb to the temptation to read his letter was a nice touch. Janeway got dumped and the Maquis was destroyed (which you knew if you watched DS9). The Hirogen part of the story was the weakest part in this episode.