Transcription
[Music] Star Trek Voyager is the story of a starship flung across the galaxy. Two crews, the upstanding Starfleet and the other, the rebellious Maquis, joined together to find their way home.
Voyager debuted in January 1995, in the midst of a golden era of the franchise. Star Trek is often divided into eras, never officially, and more as shorthand for fans. Trek fans consider the Original Series and The Animated Series as the early era of Trek. The Original Cast movies as its own era, and so forth.
If you ask a Star Trek fan what the best era of Trek was, they will probably say the time between the late 80s through the turn of the century, when The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager were on the air. They may or may not count Enterprise among its era, considering how different it was from the rest. For a long time, The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 were heralded as the best of this era, and with good reason. The Next Generation was iconic, and Deep Space 9 was a kind of precursor to the peak television style of writing, in which there were season-long arcs, completely unheard of in Star Trek prior to this.
Voyager was often considered lesser Trek by the nerdy faithful, or even just flat out bad. My observations about Trek fandom come from personal experiences, everything from late 90s Trek message boards through modern-day Facebook fan pages. If your experiences with the fandom are different, that's okay. Our experiences are not universal.
This general consensus of Voyager being lesser Trek has been challenged in recent years by new Star Trek fans. According to Netflix data, Star Trek Voyager episodes are re-watched more than any other Trek. IMDb user ratings for Star Trek episodes from shows before Voyager average at 7.466 for the Original Series, 7.400 for The Next Generation, 7.586 for Deep Space 9, and 7.4 for Voyager. That's approximately the same as TOS and TNG, and just below DS9. Bear in mind, I don't think a bunch of numbers can determine some objective ranking of quality. That's nonsense, but these numbers do seem to indicate that a lot more people love Star Trek Voyager than the uber nerds of the 90s believed, or at least indicate that those feelings have broadly changed.
A lot of people are re-watching Voyager, or watching Voyager for the first time, on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and CBS All Access, and thinking, "Is this good?" I would argue yes, it is. And before anyone jumps up and says, "In your opinion," like, yeah, I know. When I put "actually" in the title, I'm being facetious. This is just me kidding around about a thing that I like, and Voyager is just a show I like. And it would be amazing if we could all just chill now.
With that out of the way, why do I sing the praises of Star Trek Voyager? It's not my favorite Trek; that's Deep Space Nine. But what is it about this series that makes it worth watching? To answer that, we actually need to explore the characters.
Eager young space cadet, operations officer, and verified snack, Harry Kim. In Trek fan circles, Ensign Kim is sometimes seen as a disappointing character who never lived up to his potential, forever trapped in his rank aboard a starship with little room for upward mobility. And at the same time, forever settled with a rank that makes everyone look at him as if he's falling off a turnip truck. A young man at the beginning of his career, but one of the things you'll learn as you move up the ranks and get a little older. "Oh, Captain, don't toy with him." Kim works best when paired with someone, because his personality is otherwise confined to being sincere, officious, and shy. But it is in these relationships where Kim shines brightest.
His closest friendship is with Tom Paris. Right from the beginning, we're introduced to Kim in Quark's bar in Deep Space Nine. Quark is attempting to sell him some lovely stones that are not worth all that much, and Kim, newly made an Ensign, says, "We were warned about the Ferengi at the Academy." Racist Quark is rightly offended, but Paris swoops in with his big dumb chin and convinces Kim not to buy from Quark, repeating Kim's line about the dangers of Ferengi. "Didn't they warn you about Ferengi at the Academy? Racist." From then on, Kim and Paris are inseparable, playing games on the holodeck. According to the Delaney sisters, the friendship is one of the highlights of the entire series.
Season 3, episode 3, "The Shoot," features Paris and Kim unjustly convicted. A clamp that functions as a torture device is implanted in both of their heads. The psychological and neurological damage causes them to turn on each other, but Kim eventually regains control and defends Paris until they're able to escape, leading to this touching scene: "You wanna know what I remember? Someone's saying, 'This man is my friend. Nobody touches him.'"
In the early seasons, Kim has a strong friendship with B'Elanna Torres, stemming from their shared incarceration by the Kazon. She calls him Starfleet, and he calls her Maquis. Kim is a by-the-book Starfleet Ensign, and Torres is the hot-tempered Maquis who does things her own way. The duo becomes more of a trio of friends, which includes Paris, and then Kim becomes more of a third wheel once Paris and Torres get together. Nevertheless, the early interactions between Kim and Torres are great, and their unlikely friendship is one of the strong parts of the first two seasons.
Kim's relationship with Seven of Nine starts as a crush, then forms naturally into a friendship based on mutual respect. "For what it's worth, it won't be the same without you." Episodes that focus solely on Kim are a mixed bag. Season 1, episode 9, "Emanations," is arguably Kim's first starring role, but he is such a passive entity in it. Season 2, episode 5, "Non-Sequitur," is the next time Kim gets his own episode, and it's easily among his best. Kim wakes up in San Francisco with no idea how he got there or what happened to Voyager, and his determination is the first time we get to see Kim get tough. It's also just a compelling story and a favorite among the early seasons.
Kim does not get another starring episode until Season 3, episode 20, "Favorite Son," where he's stranded on a planet of women, and it's not great. Harry working best as a companion to other characters might seem like a failing, as if he's not engaging enough to hold an episode on his own. But it could be argued that this aspect of his character actually reveals he's simply a very likable character, and watching him play off other characters is Kim being utilized well. He does get major roles in some classic episodes like "Timeless" and "Demon," where he gets to say this: "Need I remind you, Winston, that there is no environment less hospitable to humanoid life than a Class Y..." "Actually, Tuvok? No, you needn't remind me."
In Season 7, episode 8, "Nightingale," we get to see Kim take a leadership position, which really should have happened earlier in the series, but better late than never. Kim is perpetually embarrassed by his parents, a hopeless romantic, and a loyal friend – all qualities that make him relatable. Also, he toots. He toots real good. Harry Kim for Captain of Voyager in a revived series, please.
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Chakotay is the First Officer of Voyager, former Maquis rebel, and also just kind of a low-key hunk, right? Sexy, in an understated sort of way. "Oh, come now, handsome man like you." In the first two seasons of Voyager, Chakotay is the conscience of the ship, always giving sound advice and guidance about respecting local cultures and traditions, not disturbing burial sites, and such. His conscience is what made him want to join the Maquis, resigning from Starfleet under moral objections. Chakotay is an anthropologist at heart, helps the crew through spiritual matters, and in his spare time, he likes to box. He's a well-rounded character with a rich backstory, and it's a real shame that after season 3, he takes such a back seat to a lot of the cast. But early on, Chakotay had a much larger role. Fans who seemed to think that the series did not really start until Seven of Nine debuted tend to forget the Chakotay of seasons one, two, and three. Chakotay was the main character in the best, perhaps only really good, Kazon episode, in which the Commander befriends a Kazon child, played by the late Aaron Eisenberg.
Chakotay's relationship with Seska is one of the most intriguing parts of the early seasons, beginning as a friendship with a previous romantic backstory. To Seska revealing herself as a secret Cardassian, to Seska stealing Chakotay's DNA to impregnate herself. Okay, that is admittedly some weird sci-fi soap opera stuff, right there, but it's also hilarious. "You're going to be a father! Hahaha! I stole your junk!" Chakotay has major parts to play in episodes like "Unity" and a bizarre fan-favorite slash goofy episode, "Nemesis," in which Chakotay is brainwashed into fighting in a conflict against aliens who are clearly just Predators. It's an emotional journey undercut by aliens who look exactly like humans but use synonyms for words we commonly use. "In the trunks?" "Did you glimpse any?" "You've got the trembles. If you don't wrestle your trembles to rage's ally, the Nemesis will nullify you." Like, I get it, we're seeing indoctrination as Chakotay begins to speak like them, but it's also hard not to laugh.
Chakotay and Tuvok have an antagonistic relationship stemming from the fact that Tuvok was a spy posing as a Maquis. Their differing views come to a head in the season 3 opener, in which Tuvok assumes the indigenous people of an alien world are dangerous and cannot be trusted, whereas Chakotay tries, successfully, to work with them. The best way to describe Chakotay is that he's just a good dude. And maybe that's not compelling for some people, but I find a character whose traits and actions are defined by his righteousness and decency to be very compelling. It's the same argument that splits people on Superman, basically. If you don't like Superman, you won't like Chakotay, and if you like Superman, you just might like Chakotay.
One common complaint about the character is that he is an amalgamation of various Native American tribes, and that the consultant for the series was actually a fraud. It's a genuine drawback to the character, and whether or not Chakotay works as good representation is a matter of some debate among Native American Star Trek fans, and it's one I do not feel qualified to offer an opinion. The problem with Chakotay is not Chakotay. When Chakotay is on, he's on. The problem with Chakotay is that there was not enough Chakotay compared to other first officers like Will Riker and Kira Nerys. Chakotay does not get a lot of focus.
The biggest missed opportunities for Chakotay to break out as a character are probably all the romantic possibilities that the series squandered. The most notable being with Captain Janeway. They had chemistry. Their friendship was one of the best relationships in the series. It was teased in a season 2 episode in which Chakotay and Janeway had to live together on a planet, possibly forever, but nothing came of it. There was also a tease for Miral and Chakotay. One episode confirmed she had feelings for him, but it was never addressed afterward. Poor Chakotay. It will never be Pon Farr night at the Vulcan nightclub.
Kes is an Ocampan, which means that like many aliens in Star Trek, she looks exactly like a human, except for one defining facial characteristic. Unfortunately, Kes's role in the first season centers around her associations more than herself. She is Neelix's girlfriend. She is the Doctor's friend. Kes doesn't get to do much except be a supporting character at the best of times.
By season two, Kes featured in the episode "Illogical," in which Kes needed Neelix to decide very quickly whether or not to be a father due to some sci-fi shenanigans that affected her body. It's an okay episode, but it only reinforced Kes's character as being Neelix's girlfriend. The only ongoing story Kes had in the first two seasons is Neelix being jealous that she was spending time with Tom Paris, and she became more of a prop than a character; someone for Paris to pine for, someone for Neelix to covet. Kes is not even involved in the resolution of the storyline in which she is the conflict. She has a kind of mentor relationship with Tuvok, so there's that, I guess. In "Cold Fire," Kes gets some character growth, but after that, it became clear that the writers simply did not know how to write Kes as a character who could be the center of the episode.
Unlike the other characters, she is not the head of a department, and she has no major role on the ship. An episode of The Next Generation starring Commander Riker could simply have him on assignment when he encounters danger, but Kes never goes on away missions. An episode of Deep Space 9 starring Dr. Bashir could start with an unusual medical problem that only he can solve, but Kes is the Doctor's assistant, not the Doctor. Now, the writers could have written her a role that would have made her part of the action. Everything that she does is changeable by the writers, but someone made the decision that Kes is a nurse, and that was that.
Kes is sweet, kind, compassionate, various other synonyms for the same thing, and Star Trek fans just hate her. Kes hate comes in many flavors. The first is that Trek fans hate the actor's performance, but they never seem to have as many qualms about wooden performances from other Trek actors. The second is that she didn't do anything, but that should be cause for disappointment about lost potential more than hate. The third is that they associate Kes with the pre-7of9 version of Voyager. If Seven of Nine needs a counterpart to always compare them to, it's Kes. Ocampans aged quickly, which meant that if Kes were to last to season 5 or season 6, she would have had to wear old woman makeup in every episode. We never got that far, though.
As season 3 turned to season 4, the producers decided, either for creative reasons or financial reasons or both, Kes needed to go. She went Super Saiyan in season 4 and disappeared forever, until the end of season 6, when she returned as a villain to destroy Voyager, but then she remembers that she was not filled with hate and learns the true meaning of Christmas, and then she's gone forever again. Kes could have been a lot more than she was, but I will always remember her fondly as a child woman who ate bugs that one time.
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Voyager went through a variety of changes as the series progressed. At the end of season two, Michael Piller, one of the series creators, left his role, and Rick Berman and Brannon Braga became more involved. Character relationships, character emphasis, and even the focus of the series itself changed starting with season 3 and reached Voyager's normalcy by the beginning of season 4 with the introduction of Seven of Nine. When people think about Voyager, they are more likely to think about this, not this.
Voyager in the first two seasons had season-long arcs, something that Rick Berman famously despised, so these arcs were gone by season 3. The arc in season 1 is the integration of the Maquis and Starfleet crews into one. Various episodes show the characters initially not getting along, then being given senior staff positions, then being instructed by Tuvok. The arc in season 2 was about Seska and the Kazon, and Chakotay's donation to that storyline. Episodes referenced previous episodes and foreshadowed future episodes. It's the basics of television in the 21st century, but was still new to Star Trek in the 90s. These arcs, these developing relationships, made Voyager feel like a home, the crew like a family, their quarters lived-in, their disagreements serious, because they could go over to the next episode.
Trek fans today remark on how much better the series became starting with "Scorpion, Part 1," but when the premise and focus of the series changed, that meant that we would never see what could have been. Kim and Torres stopped being besties. Paris and Torres suddenly had feelings for each other that the series kept insisting began in season 1, but there was no real evidence of that, or even the idea that the writers were setting that up. Seska died in the season 3 premiere, ending the series' primary antagonist before Voyager was even halfway home. Imagine if Q only had "Encounter at Farpoint" and then maybe two more episodes before pulling the character altogether, not allowing the audience to see his relationship with Picard develop in classic episodes like "Tapestry." Imagine if Gul Dukat perished in an explosion in that early episode of Deep Space Nine when Thomas Riker takes off his sideburns. We would have never seen him in the Dominion, or with Ziyal, or anything else. Trek fans might scoff at this because Seska was no Dukat, but they didn't really give her a chance to be.
Voyager switched her out for the Borg Queen as the primary antagonist, a character that might have had a more striking aesthetic, but without much potential for depth, motivation, and an arc. The Kazon were not much of a threat, but they always seemed more powerful and more cunning with Seska leading them. Season 3 also largely saw the end of the Vidiian, a complex antagonist species that performs unspeakable acts out of desperation to save their culture and their population from a plague. The other notable change in focus after the end of season 2 is that the Maquis were an afterthought. Not the characters. Torres gets a lot of screen time, but the fact that they were Maquis is rarely brought up. They are simply Starfleet officers now. In the crowd-pleasing season 3 two-parter "Future's End," Chakotay even seems to renounce his former membership in the Maquis. Contrast that with Kira's days in the Maquis resistance in the season 3 episode "Worst Case Scenario." Tuvok confirms that there are no more major disagreements between the Starfleet and Maquis crew members. The premise of the series no longer exists. They are still working toward finding their home, but all of their struggles are external, rarely internal.
The first three seasons are often dismissed, but there are simply too many good episodes in them, and it's a shame that they are seen with such derision. "Caretaker" is a better pilot than most of what Trek normally gets, looking at you, "Encounter at Farpoint." "Eye of the Needle" is this quiet, desperate story about Voyager trying to convince a Romulan on the other side of the wormhole to help them, and the twist ending is heartbreaking. "State of Flux," with Seska, is a fine mystery in which the crew tries to discover who is the spy. "The 37s" is just fun. Voyager finds Amelia Earhart on the other side of the galaxy, and it's played up so sincerely, despite the cornball premise. "Projections" really has the Doctor come into his own as he struggles with his own identity. "Meld" introduces Lon Suder, the best supporting character crew member Voyager gets. He's a murderer with a redemption arc, and it's actually very satisfying. It also gives us emotional, creepy Tuvok. The early seasons also get two of the best Q episodes in all of Trek. The later season Q episode is the worst. "Real Life" with the Doctor's holographic family and "Course: Oblivion" with Janeway preparing for the afterlife both pack an emotional wallop. I also have strong feelings about Tuvix and the ethical conundrum in that episode. My feelings are as follows: that information is not available, and that's what I have to say about Tuvix. The first three seasons, particularly seasons one and two, really are worth re-watching.
In an era when season-long arcs are more appreciated, Tom Paris joins Voyager straight out of prison to hunt down the Maquis. Before that, he was with the Maquis. Before that, he was in a flying accident at Starfleet before covering it up. And before that, he was Nick LaForge. Paris eventually earns the respect of the Maquis and the respect of Captain Janeway. Opinions on all Star Trek characters vary, but opinions on Tom Paris specifically vary so wildly. I have seen Trek fans think of him as a goofy, cringy space Chandler. I have seen Star Trek fans think of him as a lovable geek doofus. I have seen people call him the worst and best Voyager character in fairly equal measure. It also seems to change with the times. He was a very popular character back then, and now there's a kind of backlash. I don't know. I, I side with liking Tom Paris. Shock horror. He's a space pirate of privilege who develops as a character throughout the series until he's a dad and a holo-novelist. All that, and he gets the best line in all of Star Trek: "That was us. So where's the child?" "We ate him."
Paris's biggest weakness is that so few great episodes are those centered solely around him. His starring roles are in "Alice," wherein Paris falls in love with a shuttlecraft, and "Threshold," wherein Paris breaks Warp 10, becomes a salamander, and mates with salamander Janeway. Paris's best central character episode is "30 Days," in which he breaks the Prime Directive to save a planet and gets sentenced to the brig and demoted in rank. #TomParisDidNothingWrong #FreeTomParis. Paris works best when he's paired with his eventual wife, like in the famous "I love you" scene from "Day of Honor." If Paris gave us one unassailable good, it's the inclusion of Captain Proton. Paris and Kim's holo adventures are funny and adorable, and they feature Satan's Robot. The best of Captain Proton comes from "Bride of Chaotica," with holodecks gone wrong, like they always do, and Captain Janeway dressing up like this to save everyone. Paris does have a lot of memorable moments, like walking down the street in World War II-era France using 20th-century lingo, traveling back in time and pretending to be a secret agent to fool Sarah Silverman. It's funny that Tom Paris became the best comic relief character in a series that already came with a pre-packaged designated comic relief character. It's also funny that the pre-packaged comic relief character gets some of the most serious episodes, but I will get to that when I get to that.
Paris has father issues in the episode "Hunters." The crew is preparing to get letters from home for the first time in years. It's an ensemble episode, but Paris is a big part of it. He tries not to get his hopes up about hearing from his father, and it's just a very quiet, warm episode that also features the heroine. So, what about Tom Paris's wife?
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Half human, half Klingon, and the series will constantly remind you about that. B'Elanna Torres is a former Maquis and Chief Engineer on Voyager. She is characterized by her fiery temper, that again, she blames on being half Klingon. Season 1 episode "Faces" splits Torres into two women, one human, one Klingon. All the way to season 7 episode "Lineage," in which Torres is concerned that her daughter might look like a Klingon. She does get to star in some memorable episodes like "Prototype," in which she befriends an android, and "Dreadnought," in which she tries to disarm a weapon that she programmed. There is an episode of Voyager in which Anton Vorik is so haunted that he almost dies. "Blood Fever" has Vorik accidentally transmit the Pon Farr to Torres. For anyone who hasn't watched Star Trek, the Pon Farr is a chemical imbalance that Vulcans get every seven years that can only be resolved by mating or by ritual combat. For some reason, those two things are nothing alike. Usually, how can that happen? Anyway, Torres has got it, and Paris is like, "Not gonna happen because your judgment is impaired." But then Tuvok is like, "No, do it." And then both Vorik and Torres resolve their respective Pon Farrs by just wailing on each other. It nearly taints the whole Paris-Torres thing. Fortunately, their actual relationship, once it gets started, is mostly sweet. They argue, but they're a good pair, and they get married twice due to some sci-fi hijinx. "Miral has asked me to forego the rigors of Klingon pain sticks in favor of a more traditional ceremony." "They're saving the pain sticks for the honeymoon." Torres gets some good development over the series, resolving her feelings about her mother and learning to let her walls down so that she can fall in love with Chandler Bing.
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Seven of Nine did not replace Kes in the way that Dr. Pulaski replaced Dr. Crusher. Seven of Nine did not become an assistant to a holographic doctor and minor character. She became head of Astrometrics and arguably the series' star from season four through seven. It was more like she was added very suddenly to boost failing ratings. She became extremely popular and was given a lot of credit for keeping the show afloat. Criticism of Seven of Nine is mostly criticism about how much attention she was given at the expense of other characters, and that's certainly fair. The more the series was about Seven of Nine, the less the series could be about Chakotay, Torres, and even Captain Janeway. This might be a little reductive, but there are two kinds of Star Trek episodes: episodes that center around a main character, and ensemble episodes in which the entire main cast is working towards solving some problem. In the latter, Seven of Nine began getting more and more screen time compared to the others in the ensemble. And in the former, episodes centered solely around Seven of Nine were a lot more common than an episode centered solely around, say, Harry Kim. This grew as the series continued. Season four had about four episodes that are mostly about Seven of Nine. Season five had about seven episodes that were mostly about Seven of Nine. So, this is a valid complaint. But with all of that being said, Seven of Nine still is a great character, played very well by Jeri Ryan. She was the star of so many great episodes and was clearly the breakout character of the series. "Scorpion, Part 2," obviously, but also "The Raven," when she learns about her parents. "Drone," when Jeri Ryan says, "You are hurting me," and we all cried. I did, and you did too. Seven had great relationships: Captain Janeway, her parental figure; Paris, Kim, lost in his perpetual crush that eventually just develops into a friendship; Tuvok, her ally against the Emotionals; the Doctor, her mentor. Remember that time Seven of Nine got rock-bottomed by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson on a martial arts planet run by the reanimator? So good.
One common complaint among Trek fans who don't like Voyager is that the series ruined the Borg. By "ruined," they usually mean that the Borg were no longer threatening as an antagonist or no longer interesting as a mystery. What once was a species so completely beyond the power of the Federation became a threat on the level of, say, the Romulans, you know, steady stock antagonists. There's Q. Then "Q Who," as much a Q episode as a Borg episode. The classic "Best of Both Worlds" two-parter. Then "I, Borg," one of the best Trek episodes of all time. And then "Descent," the two-parter. I do not argue that Voyager ruined the Borg. I would argue that the Borg peaked too soon after "Best of Both Worlds." Where do you go? You do a more philosophical episode to humanize them, and then you just completely botch it in "Descent." The Borg were basically a hired goon squad for Lore, Data's evil twin. Star Trek: First Contact better answered the "where do you go from here?" question following the whole Locutus thing. Time travel. It's ludicrous, and it's great. But after that, it seemed like the Borg really were just another antagonist. The Borg was this top-shelf threat right up until the closing credits of First Contact. Voyager didn't have "The Scorpion" episode until after First Contact. Voyager did not play out the Borg as an antagonist the TNG series and movie did. They did the only thing left with an antagonist species that can ever be done in Trek: they joined the main cast. It happened with the Klingons, an antagonist in the Original Series, and then in the main cast of The Next Generation. It also happened with the Ferengi in The Next Generation, getting new life in the main cast of Deep Space Nine. And then the same thing happened with the Borg in Voyager. They explored the Borg through Seven of Nine and through Unimatrix Zero. Yes, exploring their culture demystified them, but again, after First Contact, they didn't really have anywhere else to go.
Some of the complaints Trek fans have with Voyager tell you a lot about Trek fans. "Why is the number of photon torpedoes so inconsistent?" is an actual constant whine that has lasted for over 20 years. "Why didn't Voyager take the wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant?" Well, allow me to answer these questions with the question: Who cares? They bought or made new torpedoes, and they went with the direct space route instead of the wormhole route because wormholes are unstable, and if they traveled for decades to something that might not exist when they got there, they would have wasted half of their lives. Minutia and lore are not plot holes and series-breaking errors. The only Star Trek canon I care about is the photonic canon.
I do have actual complaints, you know, genuine complaints with Star Trek Voyager based on what is actually in the series and not how well it adheres to canon or Roddenberry's vision. Voyager did a poor job with its supporting characters. The main cast is very likable and has great chemistry, but the series spent little time on developing supporting, recurring characters. Supporting characters in Trek flesh out the world of each series and offer new opportunities for the same characters to emerge and present new challenges. Deep Space Nine had Garak, Nerys, Dukat, Winn, and so many more. The Next Generation introduced Q, Guinan, Q's father, Barclay, Lore, and more. Voyager, by contrast, reused Q and Barclay and got rid of Seska, Kol, and Suder in the same episode. The season 3 premiere. They didn't really do much with Vorik except the aforementioned extremely gross episode. Afterward, he became a background character like so many nameless Ensigns in Star Trek. As the series progressed, various children were introduced: Naomi Wildman and Icheb. Icheb is a deeply boring character. "I'm sorry. I'm glad as I got pulled out. I don't care."
The other complaint is that there were some disastrous episodes. This is true of any Star Trek, but Voyager had some whoppers. "11:59" is often hailed as its worst. Janeway learns that her ancestor was not as important as she once thought, and it plays out in a modern-day romantic drama. The funny thing is that the scenes on the ship with the crew chatting together about their families are actually really good and have that unmistakable Voyager chemistry. If the whole episode had been this quiet story on the ship instead of the story of someone's car breaking down in front of a bookstore, it might have been salvaged. "Retrospect" feels like the writers were arguing against the Me Too movement 20 years early. Avoid at all costs. "False Prophets" is your standard Ferengi episode, meaning obnoxious and painful to watch, proving that only Deep Space Nine seemed capable of writing good Ferengi stories. These episodes, along with a few others, make for some indefensible stories and moments in Voyager.
Tuvok is the sassiest Vulcan. Vulcans are always written to be humorless, but Tuvok has such contempt for some characters that he can't help but be sarcastic, an uncommon trait among his people. "Well, straighten them out, shall I flog them as well?" "I love to." This is how he dances. Look at him go. Tuvok stars in a lot of Voyager's best episodes. The aforementioned episode "Meld" with Lon Suder is intense and powerful. "Flashback" with Tuvok remembering his time serving under Captain Sulu is not only fan service but actually a compelling story with some funny moments. "Gravity" has Tuvok, Paris, and the Doctor stranded on a planet, and Lori Petty falls in love with Tuvok, and it's beautiful.
Tuvok has two major relationships throughout the series: Janeway and Neelix. Tuvok and Janeway are old friends. Their relationship is one of mutual respect, but also almost familial comfort. The scene in "Endgame" between them is so touching and so sad. Trek fans often cite Kirk and Spock or O'Brien and Bashir as the best-written friendships in Trek, but Janeway and Tuvok is up there. And then there's Neelix. Neelix is the comic foil to the serious Tuvok. The relationship actually gets more development than that, though. In the season 3 episode "Rise," Tuvok and Neelix must work together, and Tuvok's contempt for Neelix is called out. Neelix's last episode is also the resolution of Tuvok's relationship with him, as the wise Vulcan encourages Neelix to save his people, the Talaxians, and admits to Neelix's great variety of skills and leadership qualities. Unlike most of the crew, Tuvok is not given many relationships, but the two that last throughout the series are among Voyager's most memorable.
Neelix is introduced in the pilot episode as a kind of junk merchant who persuades the Voyager crew to help rescue Kes. Unbeknownst to them, Neelix starts off as a kind of con artist with a heart of gold and becomes arguably the most valuable member of the crew. He's the cook, ambassador, morale officer, at times security officer. Neelix was designed to be a comic relief character, but it doesn't take long before the audience realizes that his nervous talking is a side effect of a traumatic life. Neelix's home planet was conquered, his home on the moon annihilated, his sister lost. Neelix has been practically homeless for a long time prior to boarding Voyager.
Neelix gets some dark and serious episodes that really allow actor Ethan Phillips to shine. In the episode "Phage," Neelix's organs are harvested by the Vidiian, and he asks the Doctor to pull the plug on him. "Jat'l" is not a good episode and has a really problematic resolution, nevertheless, it does contain a great performance by Phillips as Neelix. "Mortal Coil" has Neelix recognizing that his religion is false and that there is no afterlife, and that without his faith, his life has no meaning. "I was dead for 18 hours. I should have experienced something. I should remember something." The episode "Once Upon a Time" is mocked because it's the one with the Flutter, but the story is actually extremely serious, as Neelix, godfather to Naomi Wildman, struggles with whether or not to tell the young girl that her mother may have been lost on an away mission. "When you were her age, you were safe and sound on Earth with two healthy parents to take care of you. You never had to worry about the possibility of being alone."
I feel like Star Trek fans have referred to Neelix as a Jar Jar Binks character so many times that it has created a kind of Mandela Effect, misremembering Neelix as a goofy character when he was just as often portrayed as sincere. In the first two seasons, Neelix is portrayed as having a character flaw: jealousy. This manifested most in his relationship with Kes. However, the series never portrays this character flaw positively, always negatively, and Neelix successfully overcomes it. Neelix and Kes breaking up is handled rather poorly. Kes breaks up with him while she is under the control of an alien, but the breakup somehow stuck and was never properly explained. I can't defend that, and I won't try.
In the end, Neelix leaves the ship to defend his people from space miners and gets a good send-off. It's a little disappointing that he only gets a cameo in the series finale, but writing him out as the hero of his people made more sense for him. He is the only character who lasts the whole series who had no personal interest in going to Earth.
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The Doctor is an Emergency Medical Hologram that, due to the passing of the Chief Medical Officer, takes over responsibilities in Sickbay. He begins his life with a terrible bedside manner, but as he becomes more accepted as a real person, that starts to change. Particularly in season 2 episode "Lifesigns," in which he shows a romantic interest in a patient. The Doctor's character growth throughout the series is arguably the best out of the cast that was there from the pilot. The Doctor spends a lot of his time arguing for his own rights, sometimes against the otherwise enlightened Captain Janeway, who sometimes is not ready to see the Doctor as anything more than a tricorder. This contrasts greatly to the relationship between Data and Captain Picard, the latter defending the rights of the former from others in Starfleet, such as in "The Measure of a Man" and "The Offspring." Janeway, by comparison, plays both supporter of and opposition to the Doctor's rights depending on the situation. It makes the dynamics between them really engaging, even tense, as Janeway holds the keys to his freedom but sometimes stands in his way for reasons of pragmatism.
The Doctor stars in some of the best episodes of Voyager. "Message in a Bottle" is behind only "Bride of Chaotica" as Voyager's best comedy episode. The Doctor is sent across the galaxy to deliver a message to Starfleet, where he encounters the Mark II version of his holographic program. "Stop breathing down my neck." "My breathing is merely a simulation, so is my neck." "Stop it." Anyway, "Living Witness" is easily one of Voyager's best episodes, carried by the Doctor. We are actually seeing a backup file of the Doctor, a duplicate, trying to set the record straight on a planet that traffics in historical misinformation about Voyager. "Latent Image" is a great mystery episode mixed with a character development episode for the Doctor, as he must resolve the fact that he made a decision based on his personal feelings and not his ethical subroutines. It's also the episode that best resolves how Janeway sees the Doctor. There are more and more Doctor-centric episodes as the series progresses, partly because the writers must have found him a great character to write for, but also because he was a very popular character among Star Trek fans. The Doctor sometimes gets the same criticism as Seven of Nine: too much focus on this character means less focus for other characters, but the audience decided they loved the Doctor. The audience got what they wanted.
Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. A scientist, an explorer, and arguably the most controversial character in the series. There are those who love Janeway for her sometimes measured and sometimes forceful approaches to problems, and some who have noted that men trying to write women as tough sometimes mistake tough for mean, and Janeway is sometimes portrayed that way. And probably for that reason, Janeway's sometimes erratic behavior is mostly the result of different writers having different takes on her. But the in-universe explanation was delivered by Tuvok in the episode "Night." "I've been observing her behavior for the past four years. Guilt has been her constant companion." Janeway feels guilty about stranding her crew in the Delta Quadrant. She saved the Ocampa, but her actions not only kept her crew far from home but also indirectly resulted in the demise of many of her crew along the way, including Harry Kim. Except they had a spare. It's complicated. Anyway, with all that being said, Janeway under incredible stress always delivers. In the episode "Scientific Method," her crew was subjected to dangerous medical experiments by aliens, and when one of her crew tragically passed because of this, Janeway was like, "This ends now," and flew Voyager into the sun. The aliens bailed out, but not before one of their ships exploded, presumably vaporizing everyone inside. "Counterpoint" is this wild episode in which Janeway traffics telepathic refugees across an alien empire and submits to inspections like border patrol in outer space. She gets seduced by the head alien, fooled into thinking he was on her side, but uh oh, she tricked him, and it's actually just a very fun episode.
Janeway is the star of "Endgame," the series finale. This finale is fine. The bad aspects of the episode are Chakotay and Seven having no chemistry, and the series ending only seconds after Voyager makes it home. Some fans were bothered by that last part, but considering much of the first half of "Endgame" shows what will, or at least what could happen to the crew following their return, anyway, this seems like a minor complaint to me. Future Janeway versus present Janeway is cool because of their different philosophies. The aforementioned scene with Tuvok is one of the best in the series, and the battle with the Borg mostly works. Whether or not the Borg being the final boss of Voyager works for you probably depends on whether or not you liked the Borg in Voyager at all. Anyway, fought a macro virus, got assimilated, still got her crew home. So why have I been referencing every possible good episode of Voyager and spending so much time on individual characters? Well, because it's related to why I think Voyager is good, actually.
In the end, Star Trek Voyager just has more decent to good episodes than bad episodes. The good episodes stand out, and the decent episodes, though unremarkable, are populated by likable characters. "Someone to Watch Over Me" may only be a decent episode, but because we care about the Doctor and Seven, seeing him fall in love with her makes the episode engaging. It's a very low-stakes episode, but the Doctor is so likable that we want him to be happy, and it's hard watching him fail in the end. The decent episodes become more than that.
As for the outright good and even great episodes, I have mentioned a lot of them already, but who can forget "Year of Hell," a two-parter with a compelling, complicated antagonist and a kind of micro version of what some people wanted Voyager to be: constantly under threat and barely making it through the quadrant? "Prey," with the heroine and Species 8472, was a good one. "Relativity" is a fun time travel episode. "Equinox" is Star Trek doing what it does best: pondering morality. "Renaissance Man" is the Doctor at his height as he evades Tuvok and tries to save the Captain. "The Voyager Conspiracy" is just bonkers, but a real crowd-pleaser. Basically, Seven absorbs too much data and starts to think Voyager being in the Delta Quadrant is either a Starfleet plot or a Maquis plot.
My argument that Voyager is good, actually, is simply that there are too many good episodes. Of course, this is all subjective, but if you want to argue against this, you're gonna have to explain why you think "Living Witness" and "Timeless" and so many other classic episodes are bad, actually. So, good luck with that. I freely admit that saying it's good because it has good episodes is not going to convince anyone because it's kind of circular. So instead of trying to convince you, I am instead trying to challenge you. Go back and watch it, or if you've never seen it before and have just heard it's bad, judge for yourself and go see it. It's on so many platforms that you must be subscribed to one of them, or if you're not, most of them have like free trials or whatever. That's it. It's actually not that complicated. I just felt like inundating you with classic episodes and moments to make my point. I hope we all learned something.
"To I understand you are a Vulcan man. You have just gone without for seven years. About Paris, please find a way to load a hypo spray. I will give you the sign. Just aim for his behind."