Ask Lemmy

Good parts: The Doctor, Seven of Nine, Tom and B'Elana

The bad: Any time the holodeck goes black and white, salamanders, every single thing about the Kazon

They never did a mirror universe episode or a section 31 episode, so they have that going for them.

It needed to find itself. The Doctor remains a great character throughout the run. Everyone else does get some moments to shine though.

Some really great episodes but the trash episodes are REALLY bad.

For myself, I just didn't like Voyager's design. I know that might seem petty, but I just thought the ship didn't look right. I've always been a refit Constitution class man.

It's the most action oriented Star Trek series. Or was when it was newish, anyway. Stuff is always happening, there are very few political episodes that just consist of talking, they do a bunch of fun shit with the holodecks, and it has an exciting premise.

It is my favorite series right behind Lower Decks for these reasons. Deep Space 9 is just beside it and not above or below, because I love it equally for entirely different reasons (it does the drama, politics and even religion stuff so fucking well).

I had loved Voyager for years before I found out that a lot of fans don't like it. I don't care, I still like it a lot. I think Janeway is a terrific captain.

It was Enterprise and Discovery that I thought really, really sucked.

The crack

They are gods at it

The more I've been thinking about this, the more I realize that because Voyager (or most trek of that era) isn't totally serialized, there's no real reason that you HAVE to watch it sequentially for the first time.

As long as you're avoiding spoiler episodes, there's no reason that you can't just watch some random stand-alone episodes, and I'm confident that watching some of those first will make you want to go back and watch the entire thing to see "how they got there."

So with that said, if you want to understand my love for Voyager, these are the top ten episodes I would recommend that are stand-alone and don't contain spoilers and epitomize why I say that Voyager is better than most people give it credit for.

• Living Witness (S4)
• Blink of an Eye (S6)
• One Small Step (S6)
• Timeless (S5)
• Scientific Method (S4)
• The Void (S7)
• Relativity (S5)
• Counterpoint (S5)
• Shattered (S7)
• Deadlock (S2)

There are others that I would put in there, but those would include character spoilers that I'd want to avoid.

I believe if you watch those standalone stories, you'll get the gist of what people love about Voyager.

Like the other two, it takes a season or so to find it's footing. I like a female captain, former enemies working together, and ship out of water stories. The redemptive and maturity arc of Paris, and his friendship with Kim. The Doctor and 7 learning what it is to be human. Chakotay's beliefs aren't made fun of, but explored. The hopefulness that even thrown across the galaxy, humans can (most of the time) stay true to their beliefs. That you can overcome your upbringing to become a better person. There's lots to like.

It was still a lot better than whatever else was on TV at 8 PM in 1997. That's pretty much where I'm at with it.

I can't speak for everyone of course, but as someone who genuinely was not fond of DS9 (not because of writing quality or anything like that, it was great for what it was in that regard.)

After DS9, Voyager had the audacity to try to be FUN again. It offered a really good mix of some serious episodes with some downright goofy episodes. For every "Year of Hell" or "Equinox", you would get an episode where they were attacked by giant viruses, or a good old fashioned holodeck program goes haywire episode.

It wasn't afraid to dive into Shlock after DS9 tried to be sooooo fucking serious.

To me, that was a breath of fresh air.

Also:

1. Janeway is easily the best captain overall. She doesn't give "Picard Speeches" like Stewart of course, but in every other aspect, her leadership is amazing throughout that series.

2. Voyager 2 parters were usually epic. This of course comes from the fact that the CGI had come a long way from the TNG days, but with the exception of Best of Both Worlds, I'd put Year of Hell, Equinox and Scorpion ALL better than any other two parter from any other series.

If your comparison is to DS9 and you want "super serious" than yeah...of course Voyager isn't going to be for you. But if you want something that isn't afraid to be a little silly sometimes, Voyager is hella-fun.

The concept of a lone ship without Federation support stuck far away from home is compelling. Throughout the series, they go through some shit.

The cast. That’s what I love about the show. The writing can be uneven and often downright contradictory (they ignore the whole “we have limited photon torpedoes” thing from the pilot pretty much immediately and have fun counting the number of shuttle craft they wind up destroying over the course of the series). But the cast is great, especially after a season or so when everyone has figured out their characters a bit.

Part of it is that Voyager has the unenviable role of being one of TNG's two successor shows. The other was DS9, and everything looks bad sitting next to DS9. Part of why DS9 was able to do the wild things that it did was because the writing team had minimal supervision and were allowed to go buckwild- paramount were keeping a closer eye on first TNG, and then Voyager. Because of that, Voyager plays it safe and worships the status quo even when the fiction is begging to go in another direction, and the whole series has this feeling of having been written by committee. This even frustrated the writers, one of whom left the show out of frustration to go write the Battlestar Galactica reboot, which is essentially gritty, serialized Voyager

that said, I watched the whole thing and largely enjoyed it. you kind of have to meet it where it is, and accept that major plot details get glossed over and everyone takes turns holding the idiot ball. for me, the characters are what salvages the underwhelming plot. being a smaller ship, younger characters like Kim and Paris are able to be movers and shakers, giving the show a coming-of-age quality not found again until LDS and Progidy. Janeway is great when she's not holding the idiot ball, it was really awesome seeing a captain who came up through science instead of command. When the blue or gold shirts give most captains a solution to a problem, they're glad the problem it solved, but Janeway would get excited about the solution itself, sometimes even finishing Belana's sentences.

Neelix had never so much as heard of starfleet, and had none of the training or skills even a crewman would need, but his good nature and see-a-need, fill-a-need ethos arguably makes him the most starfleet person on the boat. Kes is similar, with the added twist of dedicating herself to a voyage she won't live to see the end of.

the doctor is an interesting inversion of the good idea/meh execution pattern because his concept is unremarkable- essentially a rehash of Data learning to be human, just accidentally and with sarcasm- but the execution was incredible. later on when 7of9 joins the cast, she displaces him as The Data but he remains a main character and takes on a mentorship role which allows him to develop even further

all in all, it's a show full of then-new and brilliant ideas that regularly fumbles the execution. and that isn't for everyone, especially with the plethora of other great trek out there. but if you watch it and are able to forgive the not great scenario writing you might enjoy it nonetheless

Voyager has more and good horror episodes, so if you like those you'll like VOY. It's best enjoyed an episode a day rather than binged. Put one on after work l, that's how I watched it

I think DS9 was pretty developed already by the end of TNG, so once it started there wasn't that much left to figure out. This can be seen by the TNG crew visiting DS9 towards the end. TNG, however, felt a little more uncertain in the first season in that the actors didn't have their characters nailed down yet, and it shows.

I suspect that Voyager might be a bit more like TNG in this regard - the concept was a bit more uncertain when they started. However, it does improve massively as it moves on.

I for one really like the temporal war storyline. And 7of9 is a great addition even if the writers' intent was mainly that of providing boobage.

Once you get past the Kazon it gets more varied. The Kazon are just terrible and they drag the show down with them.

That being said, some of my personal favorite VOY episodes are in the first few seasons, they just don't involve the Kazon.

The first season or two are rough. The Kazon stuff is just... Blah, imo. After that it picks up. The character development, I think, is the best part. Mostly the Doctor, if I'm being honest. Later when Seven joins, her character arc is great, too, and while she was definitely supposed to be sex appeal, her actress, Jeri Ryan, crushes it as a character and not just a sex symbol.

I'm guessing the whole Neelix thing is throwing you? He's definitely incredibly grating, but he'll weirdly grow on you as the show progresses.

In my opinion, it's definitely the weakest of the three you mention, but it still has its merits. Even after we leave the Kazon stuff behind, you'll get a one off episode here or there that just falls flat.

I'd suggest trying to power through a bit longer to see if you can pick up anything you start enjoying. And if not, there's no shame in not finishing. Not every series hits for everyone and that's okay.

It depends on how far you've gone. Most Star Trek shows of the era took a while to get up to speed.

Voyager has a cadence similar to TNG except that the various species that Voyager interacts with changes over time. After the Kazon, the new species are better designed and fleshed out.

Seven of Nine is a far better designed character than Kes and the writing for her was so much better. It also seems like the show was able to identify the characters that could carry an episode.