Star Trek fans: what do you think of Voyager?

[smokingplane]

Personally I like tng best, followed by voyager.
Seven of nine makes for some great eyecandy and some good Borg themed episodes.

 

[Virmire]

I liked it, but I'm a bit of an oddity of a Star Trek fan. I loved DS9 more then the original, and about the same as TNG. (problem hardcore trekies?)I honestly think that it's characters re the most interesting in the franchise, Odo and Sisko especially so.

I was watching the entire series of Voyager on the internet near the end of this summer, but only just got past the first season before my hellish workload returned.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I quite liked it. It had some interesting characters, yes I didn't like Seven of Nine solely for her looks, and I thought Janeway was pretty damn awesome. Not that I thought about it that much, I was like 12 when I watched that a lot.

Oh and Neelix can go die in a fire, but I believe that that's the consensus between Trekkies.

 

[Baneat]

The first season of TOS should be pretty safe.

I caught the first 3 episodes, really good TV!

 

[Evgeny Chernovalov]

Although Voyager did have some good points to it and some bad, I very much dislike Janeway. Not necessarily because she is a woman, but because she blatantly disregarded Federation directives. At least Picard didn't ally himself with the Borg...willingly, though he DID bend the rules a little here and there. Janeway just didn't have the finesse that Picard did.

Enterprise was another story. The episode where they find remains of a Borg ship and know exactly what it is definitely killed it for me.

 

[Vivi22]

But, Voyager had a few episodes on par with anything else within the Star Trek series.

...

Favorite episode: don't recall the name, but long story short, a Voyager and crew are trying to get to Earth as they discover: they are imposters. Protoplasm formed into a replica of that crew.

It was cruel, harsh, and unflinching in its judgment of the nature of existence. Brilliant.

I agree with these sentiments. I actually really liked that episode as well.

Sadly, the number of Voyager episodes that rank among the best in Star Trek history couldn't be counted on your fingers. I'm not even sure you'd need both hands to be honest. But perhaps the worst part was that if the episodes weren't utterly amazing and some of the best in Trek history, they were either dull at best or an insult at worst. It was made even worse by the fact that the majority of the really good episodes revolve around either the Doctor or 7 of 9. The rest of the cast was fairly lame by comparison. Though the Doctor wasn't immune to bad plots, such as their updated take on the trial of Data with a half hearted, non-committal conclusion where the Doctor may or may not be a person under federation law, but the judge is too much of a pussy to decide one way or the other.

The show also suffered heavily from alien of the week syndrome, and was fairly disingenuous with it's initial premise. It was supposed to be a show about a ship alone on the other side of the galaxy with no support and limited supplies. What it actually was was every other Star Trek ever where the ship was shot to pieces every other week and then fully repaired the next, and where supplies were only limited if it was required to serve as a plot contrivance that week. So instead of doing something drastically new with the series, it played it safe and stuck to old conventions. Deep Space 9 actually broke more new ground for the series than Voyager ever did.

And to top it off there was the techno-babble. Yeah, every Star Trek has it's share of indecipherable, made up, deus ex machina tech jargon, but Voyager seemed to take it to new heights and certainly not for the better.

 

[Erttheking]

It was the only one that I ever watched and for what it's worth I enjoyed it...though I can't help but feel that the Borg suffered from serious Villain Decay.

 

[gorfias]

Voyager had that god forsaken episode "Threshold", if anyone dares to remember that one. Though beyond that, I personally enjoyed the endgame shows of DS9 and Voyager more than I did Next Generations (Stewart was still an awesome actor, along with the rest of the primary crew, but the plot was just.. lacking).

Voyager is a very long (or seems long) Star Trek series, in the end. You have a lot of bad or lackluster eggs in the batch, you have some good ones, and you have some awesome ones. All three are inevitable with a series that lasted several years straight-and-true, however.

You didn't love "All Good Things"?!?!?!? I thought that (despite a big plot hole) better than any of the STNG theatrical releases!

But, Voyager had a few episodes on par with anything else within the Star Trek series.

...

Favorite episode: don't recall the name, but long story short, a Voyager and crew are trying to get to Earth as they discover: they are imposters. Protoplasm formed into a replica of that crew.

It was cruel, harsh, and unflinching in its judgment of the nature of existence. Brilliant.

I agree with these sentiments. I actually really liked that episode as well.

Sadly, the number of Voyager episodes that rank among the best in Star Trek history couldn't be counted on your fingers. I'm not even sure you'd need both hands to be honest. But perhaps the worst part was that if the episodes weren't utterly amazing and some of the best in Trek history, they were either dull at best or an insult at worst. It was made even worse by the fact that the majority of the really good episodes revolve around either the Doctor or 7 of 9. The rest of the cast was fairly lame by comparison. Though the Doctor wasn't immune to bad plots, such as their updated take on the trial of Data with a half hearted, non-committal conclusion where the Doctor may or may not be a person under federation law, but the judge is too much of a pussy to decide one way or the other.

The show also suffered heavily from alien of the week syndrome, and was fairly disingenuous with it's initial premise. It was supposed to be a show about a ship alone on the other side of the galaxy with no support and limited supplies. What it actually was was every other Star Trek ever where the ship was shot to pieces every other week and then fully repaired the next, and where supplies were only limited if it was required to serve as a plot contrivance that week. So instead of doing something drastically new with the series, it played it safe and stuck to old conventions. Deep Space 9 actually broke more new ground for the series than Voyager ever did.

And to top it off there was the techno-babble. Yeah, every Star Trek has it's share of indecipherable, made up, deus ex machina tech jargon, but Voyager seemed to take it to new heights and certainly not for the better.

I did something of a marathon last night after posting this, starting with the "Oblivion" episode and it was every bit as great as I recall. Watched some DS9 after someone recommended the Valiant episode, which was also great.

Next Gen had a lot of bad to meh episodes as well. I don't think Voyager was as evenly good as Next Gen, but, as you note, with great 7 of 9 episodes (I only started watching regularly after her inclusion) and Doctor episodes, it is actually pretty strong TV. The characters of Chikote and Tom Paris were also pretty strong characters.

Worst thing about it was the time travel to the past to correct stuff you don't like element, which was in its series finale! Yes, All Good Things had a time travel element, but it was to correct mischief by Q, not to create new mischief.