Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

Power went out last night and hasn't been restored, that slows down the viewing a bit.

“Prey” Tony Todd as a Hirogen tries to hunt the wrong prey – species 8472. Seven asserts her individuality to save the ship and Janeway smacks her down. When six Hirogen ships are about to blow up your ship and instead of saving your ship you choose to try to save species 8472 who boarded your ship and attempted to kill you.

“Retrospect” wow so the assault victim isn’t telling the truth, way to stay classy Voyager, I’ve seen more enlightened social commentary on SVU.

“The Killing Game Pts 1 & 2” see, this is what happens when you pick a fight with the Hirogen: they take over your ship and force your crew into deadly combat over and over again. Star Trek gets to visit its favorite time – WWII and they finally own up to Dawson’s pregnancy albeit in a convoluted manner. Klingons invading 1930s France certainly falls under the things you never expected to see category.

“Vis a Vis” the writers forget three years of character development and turn Paris into a total jerk. After his Freaky Friday swap Paris becomes an even bigger jerk. At least Janeway had the presence of mind to ask about the space folding technology.

“The Omega Directive” Seven finds her God Particle, an appropriate episode given recent events. Bland episode.

“Unforgettable” Virginia Madsen belongs to a species no one can remember but she hits it with Chakotay anyway. They don’t live happily ever after.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Living Witness” interesting episode about how some folks rewrite history for the own purposes and some folks don’t understand that history does influence the present. It was fun to see the alternative Voyager including Kim getting a promotion, the Doctor as an android, a whole Borg mini collective, and Chakotay’s new face tattoo. His was Tim Russ’s directorial debut and overall it’s a good episode.

“Demon” hey, I guess Kim saw that previous episode and decided to grow a pair so he could get that promotion in reality. If the writers had continue to evolve the character in this manner, Kim could have turned into a far more interesting character. Voyager’s almost out of power (I totally understand the feeling) so they find a Demon class planet to get some gas. You know, after the Hirogen blowed up the ship real good in “The Killing Game”, this is the first time there’s been any mention of problems with the ship (there’s that darn reset button again).

“One” another Seven episode where the entire crew is put into stasis do go through a nebulae. This is my issue with adding cast members in the middle of a show: the writers spend way too many episodes doing backstory on the new character to the detriment of the other characters. This happened on DS9 with the new Dax though TNG avoided it when they replaced Crusher with Polaski probably because they never bothered to develop Crusher properly so why bother with her replacement. Anyway, question: where did they get the energy and materials to create all of those stasis pods? Overall it’s an interesting meditation on the effects of extreme solitude.

“Hope and Fear” Janeway’s got a lot of damn nerve. Seven tells her she doesn’t want to go to the Alpha Quadrant and Janeway tells her she owes the crew and has to start pulling her own weight. In the previous episode Seven kept the entire crew alive and almost died tried to keep them safe what else does Janeway want Seven to do? Does she still think Seven is mentally incompetent to make her own decisions? Janeway tells Seven she wouldn’t drop any member of her crew off in the Delta Quadrant but that’s not true. In “Cold Fire” Kes considered staying with the other Ocompa and Kes considering leaving with a random alien in “Darkling” and wasn’t there some random episode where she gave the whole crew the option of leaving the ship? Hell in the very next episode she tries to vote herself of the island!

“Night” finally, Janeway admits that she made a mistake by stranding Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. It only took four years but better late than never. I can’t imagine being stuck in a total void, yikes, no wonder the crew was crawling out of their skin. Unfortunately, this episode also introduces us to the Captain Proton program. I think one of the episodes involving this program was kinda fun but the rest were just silly – filming them in black and white was a nice touch though. I was reading the season overview on Memory Alpha and the writers said that this was Voyagers darkest season. We’ll see.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Drone” So raise your hand if you think allowing the 29th century Borg, who for all intent and purposes sexually assaulted one of your crew, to grow on the ship is a good idea? I think Janeway is the only person who raised their hand. In her own words, this is the most advanced Borg ever created and Janeway wants to control it, what is wrong with this woman? Gotta love the progressive feminist politics: Janeway didn’t say she didn’t want to abort the fetus, she said she didn’t want to murder the fetus. Semantics matter.

“Extreme Risk” so nobody notices that Torres is depressed and hurting herself. We get a new shuttle and the toxic polluters the Malon haven’t gone away. Way too many episodes after the fact the writers finally acknowledge that the Maquis members of the crew lost all of their friends and family. It would have been way more believable if they had shown Torres running some of these holodeck programs in previous episodes but Dawson’s pregnancy and childbirth might have changed their plans (but that means assuming the writers actually had a character development plan).

“In the Flesh” I love how Janeway says they are the only thing that can prevent an invasion of Earth. Hah, that ship has already sailed thanks to the Dominion. Species 8472 re-creates Starfleet Headquarters complete with a Cylon. Janeway forges peace with 8472 and seeing Tucker Smallwood made me want to watch Space: Above and Beyond. We get a different objectifying bodysuit for Seven and I think this is the last we see of species 8472.

“Once Upon a Time” our first Naomi Wildman episode but unfortunately not our last. It was a very bipolar episode with the seriousness of the shuttle crash on the one hand and the random children’s story fantasy on the other. Neither story was particularly interesting or successful.

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“Timeless” so Kim and Chakotay make it to Earth but Voyager dies a frozen death. Our two wayward crew members become outlaws and rewrite history. I love the blunt and bitter Kim and Captain La Forge was a nice touch. As Voyager’s 100th episode it’s actually pretty compelling. The sequence of Voyager crashing into the ice planet were cool, no pun intended. I agree with Wang, this could have been a two-parter. Question though, the slipstream didn’t get them home but it took 10 years off their journey. Since they have the phase corrections that would dump them out of the slipstream, why didn’t they enter the slipstream again in short bursts.

“Infinite Regress” is yet another Seven episode. We get to see Seven suffer through the Borg equivalent of multiple personality disorder. Solid performance by Ryan but seriously, how many Seven episodes is this? Janeway doesn’t want Seven to beam the Borg ship component onto Voyager but three episodes ago she allowed a 29th century Borg to mature on her ship. Jeez there is no rhyme or reason to this woman’s decision-making process. Why they didn’t just blast the thing out of space I have no idea.

“Nothing Human” the Cardassians make their appearance in the Delta Quadrant in the form of a Joseph Mengele type doctor who experimented on Bajorans and is now tasked to help Torres. I feel really bad for Dawson b/c she spent the majority of the episode on a bio bed with a random creature bug attached to her body. That could not have been pleasant. This is what happens when Janeway beams random creatures onto the ship without knowing anything about the creature. There are two ethical dilemmas in this episode, first, do you accept treatment from a doctor who used unethical tactics (and that’s putting it mildly). As Seven pointed out, the Borg also acquired knowledge through unethical methods and Voyager has already benefited from that knowledge.

The other ethical dilemma in this episode has do to with the fact that Torres made is perfectly clear what her wishes were and Janeway completely ignored them. It’s one thing to think that Seven may not have the mental capacity to make her own choices when she was newly freed from the collective, it’s another thing to invalidate the wishes of a perfectly lucid crew member who was in full control of her mental processes. If I was Torres I would have risked brig time and punched Janeway when she came to my quarters to explain her complete disregard for individual decision making. This isn’t even the first time Janeway’s done this in the show (“Tuvik,” “Hope and Fear”). Of course the writers hit the magic reset button and there aren’t any ramifications from Janeway’s decision.

“Thirty Days” wow Kim can’t get promoted from ensign but Paris just got his butt demoted. Seriously, it took Nog what two years to be promoted to Lt. but Kim is still stuck at ensign. Anyway, we finally see the Delaney sisters and Tom ends up in the Brig thanks to meddling in alien affairs. Can we say cultural imperialism boys and girls. Mr. Paris, you cannot impose your belief systems on other cultures. Yes one of them asked for your help but the two of you cannot decide the fates of hundreds of thousands of people. Yes the bureaucrats were total jerks who were endangering the planet but that’s their choice.

“Counterpoint” Janeway meddles in alien affairs by harboring wanted refugees but she doesn’t confine herself to the brig like she did with Paris in the previous episode. Janeway falls for a fascist inspector and gets played – though she played him right back. It was nice for Janeway to finally have a romantic interest and her chemistry with the actor who played Kashyk. Sisko is the only captain that manages to have a healthy, stable relationship and even that was cut short.

“Latent Image” our second Sophie’s Choice episode after “Tuvik.” Turns out the Doctor couldn’t process the fact that he had to choose which patient to save and he picked the crew member he knew, Kim. In her authoritarian way Janeway deletes the Doctor’s memories and once again goes against a patient’s treatment wishes (and violates his individuality as Seven points out). The fact that Janeway views the Doctor as a glorified replicator is heartless and inaccurate. The more episodes I watch the less I like Janeway – and Starfleet promoted her by the time Nemesis rolled around. At least Picard’s self-righteous behavior was consistent until we got to Insurrection. At least the Doctor admitted why he made his choice something Janeway couldn’t/wouldn’t do in “Tuvik”. Thankfully Janeway got it right the second time around and we see the Doctor struggle with the fact that he has a soul. We also got to see a Janeway who can reflect on her decisions and work through trying to do the right thing. What a freaking concept. Picardo was excellent here and I appreciate the ambiguous ending (though I think the original ending with Janeway falling asleep in the chair instead of her leaving would have been stronger emotionally b/c it would have shown that the Doctor didn’t have to face his struggle alone). Two solid episodes in a row, that has to be a Voyager record.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

Janeway is nuts, which explains her promotion to admiral as most admirals we see in trek have issues

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Bride of Chaotica” OMG camp and over-the-top to the extreme! It’s a fun episode but it’s not one of my favorites. I would be happy that it was the last Captain Proton episodes if it weren’t for the random village we get in future holodeck endeavors.

“Gravity” lovely Tuvok episode. I like that we get images of a young Tuvok bucking against logic and Vulcan culture though I was a tad uncomfortable with the suggestion that Tuvok formed an emotional attachment to someone other than his wife. The mild-meld at the end was a nice touch and spared us from the randomly overly sentimental dialogue the writers would have put in its place.

“Bliss” so Voyager gets digested by a giant space slug who basically hops the crew up on LSD so they hallucinate their dreams of returning home. I think I dropped a few IQ points just typing that sentence.

“Dark Frontier” Janeway decides to jack a transwarp coil from a disabled Borg vessel. We get copious amounts of background on Seven via the field notes of her parents who willingly followed Borg cubes for three years. I do research as part of my job so I understand its necessity but you take your young child on a trip through the galaxy to track one of the most aggressive and hostile life forms known to humans. Kudos for tracking the Borg for three years but they really were just asking to be assimilated. This was really strange: the Borg Queen contacted Seven and told her they knew all about Voyager’s plan and made a deal: if Seven rejoined the collective Voyager would be spared. Now Seven makes the choice to rejoin the collective but did she have to? It seems to me that she could have told Janeway: the Borg are hip to our plan, we need to abort, but Seven didn’t do that. It’s almost as if Seven wanted to rejoin the collective but the writers had drilled into our heads in a few previous episodes that Seven was happy being an individual. That just smacks of lazy writing for sweeps. Continuity wasn’t on the writer’s minds either since the Hansen’s and the Federation’s scientific community knew about the Borg before the events of “Q Who” and Seven is nowhere near the first drone to recover their individuality (she’s not even the first on Voyager). Still it’s a good episode(s) even if it is a blatant attempt to capitalize on First Contact.

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“Disease” Kim, didn’t anyone ever tell you to practice safe sex? Really writers, Kim finally gets some love and you give him an STI? Good grief, poor guy. I don’t remember Riker getting chewed out when he tapped some alien a**. You have to get formal permission to have a relationship with someone, I don’t remember that coming up in any other Trek episode and I’ve watched a LOT of episodes. Janeway had a complete meltdown that was a total overreaction and thankfully she admitted it. Kim is a grown man who has done everything asked of him and should have been promoted by now (even if it is only a field promotion). He didn’t deserve an official reprimand because he fell in love.

“Course: Oblivion” this is one of those love it or hate it episodes. A sequel to the episode “Demon” we find out what happened to the duplicate crew who don’t remember that they’re duplicates. The writers grow a pair and not only kill off the entire duplicate crew it has the crew fail to get their time capsule out in time. I like that the duplicate Torres and Paris get married while the real couple still doesn’t quite have their act together. I like that the duplicate crew was much closer to earth than the real crew and that they’d figured out a way to get home. I felt kinda bad for the duplicate crew: they were so close to home but had to turn around; they were close to getting their time capsule out but couldn’t, they were close to getting Voyager’s attention but fell just short and nothing they accomplished will be remembered. You know, I’m beginning to think that this is Voyager’s first solid season.

“The Fight” and then there’s this episode. Chakotay goes Looney trying to communicate with an alien. Could have lived without this boxing episode. Actually, isn’t there some Running Man type fighting episode with Dwayne Johnson later on in the series?

“Think Tank” Jason Alexander wants Seven to join his merry band of intellectuals. It doesn’t work, and neither does the episode.

“Juggernaut” see I just wrote about this being Voyager’s first solid season and then I have to sit through two duds in a row. The Malon come back and Torres still can’t control her temper. Seriously, we’re in year five, can we get some character evolution for her already. I wonder how long it took Ron Canada to get into that makeup and costume? If it wasn’t for his distinctive voice I wouldn’t have known that was him.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

but even in "Q Who" someone in the Federation should have already known about the Borg, unless the El-Aurians decided not to tell anyone why they were refugees. That doesn't even require any possible retcons from Generations, it's right in Q Who that the Borg attacked their homeworld
I guess it's possible that none of them decided to tell anyone about the borg, but if so they deserve to be rounded up, put in stasis, and put on a ship on a one way trip to the delta quadrant broadcasting a message to the borg that they missed a few

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

But that's still consistent with "Q Who." At the time in the Star Trek 'verse that Guinan was on board the Enterprise-D, the Borg destroying their homeworld was already in the past, and yet there she is, an El-Aurian aboard a Federation ship, and the Federation doesn't know anything about the Borg.

I suppose we could infer that either the El-Aurians weren't talking, or the Federation higher-ups knew about the Borg threat and kept in quiet.

Though at the time, Guinan was supposed to be a mysterious character, so it could be possible that she was the only one in Federation space, though subsequent stories like "Generations" and the Mark Twain two-parter show that her species has been hanging around Earth for quite some time.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

If I remember correctly in "Q Who" Guinan told Q that the Federation wasn't supposed to encounter the Borg so soon which tells me that she purposely didn't tell anyone about the Borg so as not to screw with future events.

If the Starfleet higher ups wanted to keep it quiet they could have gone all "Omega Directive" and labeled it top secret but you have to tell your ship captains so they aren't caught with their pants down like the Enterprise was during their first encounter.

I agree that there probably weren't that many El-Aurians hanging around the Federation after the events in Generations: they were probably still pissed about being ripped from the nexus and Guinan never mentioned anyone else. Guinan only stuck around to b/c of Picard and to ensure that the events of "Time's Arrow" take place the way they're supposed to.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Someone to Watch Over Me” Trek meets My Fair Lady. The Doctor teaching Seven how to date and then falls in love with her. In true Trek fashion no one’s discussion of dating rituals mention same-sex relationships. The Doctor’s feelings are never mentioned again.

“11:59” You already knew how faulty Janeway’s version of history was when in the first scene she said her ancestor was one of the first female astronauts. Hello, by the time this episode aired, let alone when the episode took place, there had already been over thirty female astronauts.
“Relativity” fun and excitement with the temporal prime directive. Capt. Braxton really doesn’t like Janeway and seriously, can you blame him. The sfdebris review of this episode was hilarious as were the plot holes and continuity issues littered throughout the episode itself.

“Warhead” this was a whole series of bad decisions. Kim and Janeway let a weapon of mass destruction stay on the ship and are surprised when it wants to fulfill its programming and blow stuff up. Picardo was excellent playing a weapon and it was nice to see Kim get some command experience.

“Equinox” remember way back in the first season episode “State of Flux” when they discovered Federation tech on a Kazon vessel? Janeway specifically said there were no reports of lost ships which is what led them to Seska? Well, turns out there is another Federation ship in the Delta Quadrant and now she remembers him. The setup was interesting: what happens if you completely abandon the Prime Directive in order to get home. I think the BSG episode “Pegasus” handles this better and more graphically too. I love how Janeway says she’s never broken the Prime Directive and then proceeds to almost have a crew member killed and agrees to turn over the renegade crew to a hostile alien that will torture and kill them. She also dismissed Chakotay when he told her she’d crossed the line. There’s no apology at the end of the episode for her actions and despite the fact that the aliens and the battles jacked Voyager up, there’s no sign of damage in the next episode. There’s that darn reset button again.

“Survival Instinct” so several years ago Seven re-assimilated a few drones who had left the collective. That sucks. Now even though they’re free of the Borg they’re not free of each other. That sucks too. Seven comes along just in time to free them from each other but they’ll only live about a month. That really sucks.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Barge of the Dead” way to uphold that cultural diversity tenant of the Federation by denying Torres the opportunity to explore a spiritual epiphany and compare it to sacrificing an innocent child.

“Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy” now that I’m familiar with John le Carré’s work, I understand the title! It’s an over-the-top silly little romp that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Quite a fun episode.

“Alice” Paris has an affair with an sentient, possessive ship who brainwashes him. It’s like a Trek version of “Christine” but with a lower body count. It’s not my favorite Stephen King novel and it’s not a very good Trek episode.

“Riddles” Tuvok, logic dictates that you should never go on an away mission with Neelix again because whenever you do, things go wrong. This time you end up without your logic and you regress to the mental and emotional intelligence of a teenager. Solid performance by Russ.

“One Small Step” this had all the markings of a non-Native American stereotype Chakotay episode but it veered off course into a Seven episode. Having someone who appreciated the history of the module (Chakotay) would have made for a much stronger story. I wonder if this episode is when writers decided to pair these two characters together later: a ham-fisted and unnecessary move that I’ll complain about later. It’s always cool to see Phil Morris and his scenes ended up being the strongest part of the episode.

“The Voyager Conspiracy” two Seven episodes in a row, lucky us. She believes Voyager was stranded by Janeway on purpose. Yes, we all know that already, so what’s your point. The idea of a Federation/Cardassian invasion force is laughable in light of events on DS9. Then she thinks Chakotay was in league with the Caretaker and plans to resurrect the Maquis resistance (which is absurd considering the Maquis has been destroyed). I love that Janeway tells Seven that there’s no one on the ship she trusts more than Chakotay – you mean except for that time in eight episodes ago when you relived him of command b/c you went bat poop crazy and he had the nerve to call you on it. Of course the last conspiracy theory Seven comes up with is that Voyager’s entire mission is all about her. Well, at least one of Seven’s theories was correct.

“Pathfinder” Hi Barclay! You’re just as neurotic as you’ve always been. The original Pathfinder project wouldn’t have worked b/c Starfleet’s projections of Voyager’s position were wildly incorrect due to tech Voyager used between the events of “Message in a Bottle” and this episode. The ending where Starfleet gets to communicate with Voyager was well played with Admiral Paris saying he missed Tom. See, if you’re going to have characters crossover this is how you do it. You make sure the episode’s events are meaningful for the guest star(s) AND the main cast. Are you listening Enterprise writers? I still don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to watch that series finale.

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“Fair Haven” I never bought the idea of Fair Haven as the ideal holographic environment for the crew. It’s like Paramount went to the writers and said: hey, we have this giant old world set on the backlot that we want you to write for, go to it. Aside from the very candidate discussion between the Doctor and Janeway regarding her romantic options, all of the episodes featuring fair haven bore me to tears. Once the writers nixed the idea of Janeway/Chakotay, they did limit Janeway’s options. On the other hand, Picard had a relationship with someone under his command so it wasn’t against Starfleet regulations but since pairing Janeway with a crew member would have meant actually developing said character, that was out of the question.

“Blink of an Eye” I know a lot of people who don’t like this episode but I enjoy it. Daniel Dae Kim has a nice guest starring role and the concept of Voyager accidently blasting the Prime Directive to pieces was interesting. Watching an entire civiliization evolve before your eyes due to a time variance sounds cool.

“Virtuoso” so let me see if I understand this correctly: Janeway’s disregarded Torres’s wishes and let a war criminal operate on her because Voyager couldn’t afford to lose her but in this episode, Janeway allowed the Doctor to resign his command and leave the ship. There are several other engineers on the ship who can keep the warp core intact but Paris is the only other person with anything approaching medical knowledge. I would trust Vorik or Seven to repair any technological issues on the ship but I wouldn’t trust Paris with any medical emergency other than filling a hypospray! T he question of free will was an interesting aspect to the episode but Janeway had already established that she only cares about an individual’s rights when it’s convenient for her.

“Memorial” hey, didn’t I see this episode in season 3: “Remember.” Instead of Torres being the only one given memories of a horrific event, now it’s Paris, Kim, Chakotay, and Neelix. It’s never a good sign when shows recycle plots from their own show. There are less invasive ways to teaching people about history than to implant the memories that they are mass murderers. In my classes, I want my students to understand the struggles for equal rights in the United States but I’m not going to induce PTSD to do it.

“Tsunkatse” yes, this is the gladiator episode with Dwayne Johnson, sorry, he was still billed as The Rock back then, I knew it was only a matter of time before I got to it. Seven gets to fight to the death against Martok and gets to reaffirm her humanity.

“Collective” oh good grief I had forgotten about the Borg children. You can’t figure out how to write for the characters that are already on the show and now you add four more!

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“Spirit Folk” our holodeck malfunction episode: the inhabitants of Fair Haven realize something is wrong and try to burn Paris, Kim, and the Doctor at the stake. They are told about the nature of their existence on Voyager. More self-aware holograms.

“Ashes to Ashes” a dead crew member returns to Voyager. This would have been a more interesting episode if the writers had focused on a crew member the audience was familiar with. Maybe if the writers resurrected the crew member the Doctor “killed” in the previous season it would have had a greater emotional impact.

“Child’s Play” We find Icheb’s parents. We come this close to getting rid of one of the Borg children but it turns out that Icheb’s home world created the pathogen that incapacitated the Borg vessel. Since Janeway doesn’t approve of using children as weapons, Icheb remains on Voyager which is in clear violation of the Prime Directive but who cares.

“Good Shepard” didn’t I see this episode too, except in “Learning Curve” it was Tuvok dealing with wayward crew members, not Janeway. This episode also feels like TNG’s “Lower Decks” since it’s mostly from the POV of random crew members. Aside from the B-story involving cheese destroying the ship in "Curve", the other episodes were stronger.

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Or Lt. "hey I'm still on board why'd the writers forget about me" Carey

the thing that bugged me the most about good shepard was the uselessness of the one guy's job.
they need to adjust power so they literally have someone walk a padd down to the lowest deck to a little tiny cubical with a port hole and have a person press 3 buttons

They couldn't make that change from a console in engineering? Or if there is some legit reason why it had to be done from the console at the bottom of the ship at least use the comm system and avoid having a person walk down there?

it did make me realize that petty officer coates from jag was on voyager so I guess there was one good thing from it

And does the delta flyer have D&D magic bag of holding technology? where is there room on it for escape pods? Where does that bio bed slide into, wouldn't it be sliding out into space from where it is positioned?

The danube class's interior looked like it would actually fit inside the exterior, but the interior of the flyer 1 and 2 always looked bigger than the ship. Guess it uses the same tech as the magically hanger bay that could fit a ton of shuttles, the flyer, nelix's ship which wasn't exactly small, etc.

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Didn't you know, the Delta Flyer was made by the same folks who made Dr. Who's TARDIS!

“Live Fast and Prosper” Some con artists are impersonating Voyager and Janeway is worried about her ship’s reputation. If I remember correctly, Voyager was being called the ship of death, your reputation was already screwed before the con artists arrived. Thankfully the writers didn’t go the obvious route by having Kim be the person who got conned, Paris and Neelix make for far more interesting marks.

“Muse” Hi Tony Amendola, I’m going to watch Stargate after I finish my Trek challenge so I’ll be seeing you again. So Torres bends the prime directive and tells revised Voyager’s stories to a hack playwright whose society is in the bronze age. Tuvok snoring in the captain’s chair was the highlight of the episode, how sad is that.

“Fury” this episode never made any damn sense. I’m all for blowing Voyager up real good just for sh*ts and giggles but there was never any reasonable explanation as to why she would sell the crew out to the Vidians. Kes says Voyager abandoned her but hello, not only did she all but demand to leave the ship but she was in the process of destroying the ship at the time of her departure. There are a lot of legitimate things to blame Janeway for but this isn’t one of them. If Kes wanted to change history why not just go to the moment she and Neelix decided to stay on Voyager and just change that decision? I think the writers completely forgot who Kes was as a character and just made stuff up as they went along. They just wanted Kes to be a villain to justify the fact that they wrote her off the show for no good reason. Hell it’s season six and the writers don’t even know how old Tuvok is (when presenting him with his birthday cake Janeway said it won’t be long until he hits the big three digits but Tuvok was over 100 years old before Voyager launched).

“Life Line” here’s what I don’t understand: in DS9’s “Doctor Bashir, I Presume,” Dr. Zimmerman looks like Picardo does in reality but in this episode, Zimmerman’s aged like twenty years. Either they didn’t age him enough on DS9 or they aged him too much on VOY. Janeway was actually correct about something: The Admiral’s desire to know the status of the Maquis on Voyager was random. At this point in the Trek universe the Maquis are dead and the Cardiassians are a broken people, and Voyager is still decades away from the Alpha Quadrant, why does he care? Troi didn’t need to be in this episode but it was nice to see Picardo chew up scenery as two characters.

“The Haunting of Desk Twelve” Voyager has to cut power to go through some random nebula so Neelix relays previous events in the form of a ghost story. Nothing interesting to see here.

“Unimatrix Zero” we haven’t had a Seven episode in awhile so here it is. They still haven’t promoted Harry but Tom gets his rank reinstated, I love that Kim actually brought that up. Janeway decides to violate all sorts of regulations by getting Voyager involved in a Borg Civil War. Not only does she violate rules by getting involved, Janeway brushes off the Queen’s offer to get them home faster. I’ll say it again, they promoted her when she got home? The Delta Flyer got blowed up real good and Janeway, Torres, and Tuvok get assimilated. I’m sure the writers wanted a “Best of Both Worlds” oh crap reaction from the audience but they’ve liberated so many people from the Collective that it had no resonance plus, they had Chakotay say that everything was going according to plan before Pt 1 ended. That kinda killed the suspense. Part two wasn’t all that compelling either especially Janeway’s “I don’t compromise with Borg” speech which is a total lie (isn’t negotiating with the Borg how you ended up with Seven on your ship?) I did like the return to the badass Borg when the Queen destroyed entire ships b/c of the presence of a couple unplugged drones. The fact that she blew up her own ship trying to kill Janeway was one way to go. Everything else about this episode is absurd.

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“Imperfection” the Borg children are gone (except Icheb) and Seven begins to malfunction all over the place. This episode is clearly aired out of order since Paris is wearing a wedding ring and they go off in search of the Borg (again) in the Delta Flyer II which hasn’t been built yet. I love that Chakotay said “it’s not everyday we go in search of Borg cubes’ when that’s exactly what they’ve done for three straight episodes now. Knowing that the Borg sometimes return for their debris, Janeway decides to perform microsurgery while inside the Borg cube instead of just beaming the drone onto the Delta Flyer and dealing with the surgery on Voyager.
I love that when Icheb told Janeway that she could order Seven to undergo surgery her response was “I have to respect her wishes” That was funny.

You know, I rushed through the final two seasons of DS9 because I was excited to re-watch the episodes. It’s one of those series like Babylon 5 where even though you know what’s going to happen, the stories and acting are so good that momentum compels you to keep watching. I’m rushing through the final two seasons of Voyager because I’m eager to get it over with.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

I was glad to see the borg twins go, the girl didn't bother me too much while she was on, and I'm actually glad Icheb stayed
I had to check on Imperfection when I watched it the other day (which means we're almost on the same episode. I think Q2 was the last I watched, I'm doing 1 or 2 a day), Memory Alpha confirms it was shown out of order

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Drive” Trek does a Kentucky Derby/Indianapolis 500 homage. We see the Delta Flyer II and Torres & Paris get hitched.

“Repression” Tuvok gets brainwashed and starts attacking former Maquis crew members by putting them in temporary comas. Turns out Keith Szarabajka scrambled Tuvok’s marbles many years ago and instructs them to take over the ship. It would have been awesome if the writers had built on the Starfleet/Maquis conflict in season one, bringing it up in seasons 6 and 7 is way too late.

“Critical Care” this is what a lack of universal heath care gets you: medical treatment based on social status. The Doctor goes to extreme measures to make sure that all of his patients receive the care they need going so far as to poison the administrator who implemented the system. Much to his dismay, his ethical subroutines were intact. Interesting episode in light of current events.

“Inside Man” oh good grief the Ferengi and Troi, that’s not a good combo. Barclay gets played by a Ferengi spy who sends a hologram to Voyager in an effort to extract nanoprobes from Seven. That previous sentence was a mess and so was the episode.

“Body and Soul” there’s a really funny 1980s film called “All of Me” where the soul of Lily Tomlin inhabits Steve Martin’s body, this episode is a nice homage to that film. The Doctor ends up inhabiting Seven’s body and screwball comedy hijinks ensue.

“Nightingale” for the second week in a row Kim is piloting the Delta Flyer when it gets shot at. Having learned everything from Janeway, Kim remembers the Prime Directive for about five seconds before violating it. Whenever I see Ron Glass I want to re-watch Firefly. Love the fact that Kim brought up the fact that he’s been an ensign for seven years and how absurd that is. The writers didn’t have to make Kim such a jerk with his first command: it was completely out of character nor was it necessary for the writers to smack Kim back into his place by having the mission implode.

“Flesh and Blood” Janeway’s decision to give the Hirogen holodeck technology comes back to bite her in the butt when the holograms become sentient and start a liberation movement. Instead of being an adult and owning up to the fact that she helped create a new race of people she wants to help destroy them. Plus Janeway’s shocked, shocked that the Doctor disagreed with her decision to commit the equivalent of mass murder and helped the fellow holograms. Making Iden a megalomaniac doesn’t make Janeway the good guy in this episode thankfully she finally realized this whole situation was her fault and the Doctor, who’s actions were just a wee bit questionable, was trying to undo the damage she caused.

“Shattered” the temporal Prime Directive goes bye bye as the ship gets divided into different time periods. It’s a nice retrospective without resorting to a clip show. This episode is a little like “It’s a Wonderful Life” as Janeway from the first episode gets to see the ramifications of her decision to strand Voyager in the Delta Quadrant before she makes it. She does question her decision and offers to change it but Chakotay changes her mind. Looks like the temporal police from “Relativity” were right about Voyager being a menace.

“Lineage” Torres is pregnant and goes bat poop crazy when she learns the fetus will develop and have Klingon characteristics. Most people don’t like this episode but I’ve always found it fascinating. First, you have the ethnics of genetic engineering and second, you have the issue of outsider status. The flashbacks of Torres as a child and what she went through because she was part Klingon was good backstory. She doesn’t want her daughter to have the same problems that she had so she tries to remove the Klingon traits from her DNA. Paris talks about how everyone is accepted on Voyager but he forgets, they might not always be on Voyager and as evolved as things appear in the 24th century, we’ve seen that things are nearly as evolved as people think.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Repentance” oh that pesky Prime Directive gets in the way when Voyager has to transport prisoners scheduled for execution. The episode brings up discussions of capital punishment, rehabilitation vs revenge and the effect having access to resources has on one’s status within a justice system. Seven is able to evade, for lack of a better word, punishment for her actions while a member of the Borg because she has access to Voyager’s resources while Iko, who only received an appeal due to his temporary proxciminity to Voyager, still had to answer for his crimes. Neelix’s chiding of Joleg’s escape attempt was a little disingenuous: it is the job of every prisoner, even members of Voyager’s crew, to try to escape. If Neelix was in Joleg’s position, he would have done the same thing.

“Prophecy” for a franchise predicated on the notion that humanity would no longer need religion, we’ve got a lot of messiahs running around. First Sisko and now Torres’s unborn child! You know, they’ve been on Voyager for seven years and Neelix is still the most disrespectful character in the universe: he knows Tuvok prefers quiet and solitude but Neelix continuously invades his space and this time he sings Klingon drinking songs and has rather destructive sex with a random Klingon woman in Tuvok’s quarters.

“The Void” I never realized how pervasive voids were in space since this is the second one Voyager has traversed. Love the fact that General Valen greeted Voyager, nice shout-out to Babylon 5. Janeway creates her own Federation in an effort to get everyone out of the void.

“Human Error” thank goodness they finally put Seven in a uniform. Unfortunately it was just a figment of her holosuite. Much to my dismay Seven’s relationship with Chakotay didn’t stay on the holodeck. The writers had to work hard to shoehorn those two together. I’m sure Beltran was happy to have something to do but there’s no romantic chemistry between actors and a relationship between the two characters made no sense. I would have believed a relationship between Seven and Tuvok before I believe Seven and Chakotay. Wait, isn’t Chakotay a vegetarian? Why would he bring a rack of lamb to dinner with Seven? Either Borg efficiency ain’t what it’s cracked up to be or the writers forgot about one of the few interesting details they dreamed up for Chakotay. Barclay made for a far more interesting holosuite addict than Seven did.

“Workforce” the senior staff have their marbles wiped to think their happy workers on a planet with a worker shortage. Janeway has a romantic relationship with someone other than a hologram. Chakotay and Neelix have to rescue the crew. This whole “it would be inappropriate to have a relationship with a member of the crew” line still doesn’t make sense to me. Picard had a relationship with someone under his command – this was a copout reason to not have Jaffen join Voyager and to keep from adding another dimension to Janeway. This two-parter served no useful purpose and wasn’t particularly interesting. In retrospect the writers should have gotten the crew back to Earth several episodes before the finale.

“Q2” Well Jr. certainly looks like his father (and since junior is played by de Lancie’s son, it makes sense). Seriously, Sisko’s solution to the Q issue was the best choice and junior certainly deserved a good butt kicking. Jr. did call Neelix a kitchen rat and removed his vocal cords which was funny. Junior did become more tolerable as the episode went along but he turned into a jerk again before becoming a decent creature once again. At least in this episode it occurred to Janeway to ask Q to take them home.

“Author, Author” the Doctor writes a holonovel that paints the crew in a less than flattering light. Fictional Janeway actually isn’t that far off from the reality of the show– she actually did execute a crew member, Tuvik - but all the other characters are a hot mess The crew has real time communication with Earth now in 17-minute intervals and even Kim’s dad asks when he’s going to get a promotion. What started as a farcical episode turns into “Measure of a Man” part two as the publisher distributes the holonovel without permission and claims he has no rights. Given the weight of what was being decided in the end, the first half of the episode with the holonovel was the wrong tone. The judge wussed out and ruled that the Doctor was an artist but wouldn’t make a judgment on whether the doctor was a person. The final scene with the other holograms running the Doctor’s program was a nice touch. One of the better episodes this season. Photons be free!

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Something bothered me last night. When they established two-way communication with Starfleet, Torres talked with her father. Given the events of “Barge of the Dead,” it would have been nice if the writers established whether or not Torres’s mom was still alive – we would know whether the events in that episode were a figment of Torres’s imagination.

“Friendship One” Damn they reminded viewers that Lt. Carey was still alive just long enough for the writers to kill him. You might as well have put that poor man in a red shirt. Voyager’s first official mission in seven years. They try to retrieve an old probe from earth which led to the decimation of an entire planet, oops. I don’t know if it’s entirely fair to blame humans for what happened. Yes the probe introduced the planet to anti-matter technology but the inhabitants were the ones who built the devices that caused the nuclear winter. There was enough blame to go around.

“Natural Law” the writers once again shove Chakotay/Seven relationship in our faces by stranding them with a pre-warp society. Nothing interesting to see here.

“Homestead” Neelix leaves Voyager, hooray! They find a group of Talaxians living in an asteroid so Neelix falls in love, stays with them, and hopefully lives happily ever after. Janeway shows a hint of humanity and compassion by preempting Neelix’s decision and offering him a permanent ambassador post in the Delta Quadrant. Tuvok gives him a toe tap before leaving the ship and I’m sure the Vulcan is happy in the knowledge that he won’t have to put up with Neelix’s antics anymore (I’m happy about that too).

“Renaissance Man” the Doctor defies all sorts of regulations and is willing to strand Voyager in the Delta Quadrant permanently in an effort to save Janeway’s life. Watching Picardo crew scenery is usually interesting but this one just seemed off. Though the knowledge that the Doctor kept a file of Janeway’s more questionable command decisions was a nice touch.

“Endgame” Tuvok’s mental state deteriorated in this episode without any hints that he was ill before now. Kim lecturing Janeway about tampering with the timeline is laughable given the events of “Timeless.” The writers continue to shove the Chakotay/Seven relationship down our throats to the point where Chakotay couldn’t live without Seven – these two actors still don’t have an ounce of romantic chemistry together. Once again Janeway manages to forget her primary mission: getting her crew home, and leaves the transwarp conduit. Thankfully she comes to her senses and goes back. Seven breaks off her relationship with Chakotay after learning of her future. Wait, didn’t I see this scene in “Human Error”? Seriously, it’s almost the exact same scene. Admiral Janeway gets assimilated, Voyager shows once again that the Borg have been defanged in this series by having the ship destroy one of the Borg’s most valued, and well guarded facilities.

Here’s what really, really, REALLY, pisses me off about this episode. For seven years we’ve wanted to get the crew home and the writers end the episode BEFORE Voyager gets to earth. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! Neelix got more resolution than the rest of the crew. We didn’t get Kim hugging his parents or Paris shaking hands with his dad or Tuvok meeting his grandchild (and being cured of the mysterious disease that didn't manifest itself until this episode), what a disappointment.

This series was much worse than I remembered it being. It’s shame that Trek’s first female captain was written as hypocritical and infuriating. The rest of the crew weren’t given much to do and aside from the Doctor and Seven, there were no character arcs that would have made them interesting.

I’m taking a short breather for house guests and a conference and then I’ll be back for the next leg of the journey: Enterpise.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

I believe a tip of the hat and a raising of the glass are in order.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

Well the weather sucks so I've had a chance to watch a couple episodes of Enterprise

"Broken Bow" First let me say that I am firmly in the hate the theme song camp. If they wanted to use a pop song fine, but the one they chose was utterly generic. That being said, there werent quite so many horrid decisions in this pilot as there were in VOY first episode. We meet the Vulcans, who nobody likes, the Klingons who no one can understand, and the Suliban who are extremely flexible. It was interesting to see a Klingon in Iowa. These new, or old as the case really is, Vulcans take some getting used to. I’m not going to complain about T’Pol just yet, there will be plenty of time to bitch about her attitude and her clothing. Archer is relatively competent which makes sense: we haven’t evolved to the Starfleet super captain stereotype though our current captain had moments of being a total ass toward T’Pol. The decon scene with T’Pol and trip was so unbelievably unnecessary. Seriously, I know VOY upped the sexiness factor with Seven but there really, really wasn’t any need to go a step further and include a soft core porn scene in ENT. Good grief. I did love that Hoshi suggested seat belts for bridge chairs – I’ve been pointing that out for over twenty years.

Re: Starting a Star Trek journey
 

“Fight or Flight” so Hoshi doesn't want to be in space and seeing a bunch of dead bodies hanging on hooks in an alien ship doesn't help the situation. At first I gave Hoshi the benefit of the doubt: she’s a translator, not a soldier so her extreme fear was understandable. Then I remembered that she is still a Starfleet officer so she should have some self-control (way to enforce those sexist stereotypes by having Hoshi being weak and T’Pol being objectified). Considering how little screen time Hoshi gets throughout the series it was nice to see an episode devoted to her. I go back and forth about the events in this episode too. On the one hand, I agree with Archer: leaving the dead aliens on the ship literally hanging there is just bad form. On the other hand, T’Pol was correct: it’s clear the murders were going to return and Enterprise is in no shape to engage in battle. Archer’s method of working though the dilemma, lashing out at T’Pol and Tucker, was just mean. I know I said that Archer was relatively competent but I think I was wrong. The only reason everyone on the show wasn’t killed was because due to luck. Janeway’s decision making was infuriating and inconsistent but Archer is coming off as mean and incompetent. It’s only the second episode so it’s not fair to generalize just yet.

“Strange New World” their first new planet and Porthos the dog is the first off the ship. The away team encounters hallucinogenic pollen and they get all paranoid. Not an original storyline to be sure and we learn that it’s probably a good idea to do an itty bitty bit of recon before going to an unexplored planet. We learn that Tucker is a nasty and violent drunk. The original script had Novakovich biting the big one but they changed it when Bakula objected since there wasn't going to be any memorial or implications of his death. It’s way too early in the series to devote tons of time to random red shirts. While I agree with Bakula's reasoning, I wish the writers would have killed the crewman. They could have begun the next episode with the memorial. Space is a dangerous place and pointing that out early in the show would have been useful.

“Unexpected” so Trucker ends up pregnant. When this episode originally aired, I shook my head and thought the Prime Directive must have been created so that humans wouldn’t get into the nonsense Tucker found himself involved in over the course of the series. Though Tucker will do some incredibly stupid things over the course of the series, this episode is not an example of that. Now I see the episode as way more heinous than the writers probably intended (at least I hope the writers weren’t trying to be this insensitive and callus). In reality, Tucker is sexually assaulted and the whole experience is played as a game by the alien and for laughs on the ship. T’Pol spends the entire time blaming Tucker for what happened and Archer can’t stop laughing long enough to realize that his Chief Engineer was raped. And of course even though Phlox has no idea what effect carrying the embryo will have on Tucker, no one ever mentions the possibility of terminating the pregnancy. Stay classy Enterprise.

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Your ep-by-ep on Voyager has been awesome; thanks. I didn't care much for the show during broadcast, and only watched maybe a random third of the run. I've been toying all year with whether to give it another shot. It bugs me not to know a big chuck of ST cannon, whether it's good or bad, but what a chore to get through....