We recently did this for TNG, so I’m curious to hear which episodes people would rate among the best, worst, favorite, or least favorite of the oft-criticized Voyager. For me, let’s see:
Best
Relativity: Seven of Nine being the only competent one on board, time travel used in a fairly fun way, and that wacky high-strung captain finally losing it. Thorough entertainment is had.
Message In A Bottle: Do you know what’s awesome? The Doctor is awesome. Lots of episodes to chose from, but this one has The Doctor and Andy Dick. Some Romulans show up to mess up everyone’s shit, yo, and the Doctors proceed to harness their intense neurosis and utter lack of regard for human life to rock out and save the day.
Also, that transforming ship is sweet.
Worst
The Fight: Chakotay saves the ship by getting the crap kicked out of him in a boxing match.
Add after this every single “Chakotay saves the day by being a native american” episode. I think it was from Demon, but one episode actually had them beam him down to a planet to find the away team by using his indian scout skills to track them on foot because most of their sensors were down. :smack:
Also, that episode where they shoved Tuvok and Neelix into the genetic blender.
Not even close for worst episode ever. That dubious distinction goes to the one where Janeway and Paris get turned into lizards, breed, produce lizardlings, and then get reverted to human form, abandoning their lizard spawn to seed some previously unspoiled planet with life. Also has technobabble about what happens at Warp 10.
Best was “Year of Hell” - Voyager gets its ass badly kicked by time-traveling badasses, and spends months limping through space barely surviving. Huge reset at the end, which is a shame, because this is really what Voyager should have been all along.
Oh yea!! I had forgotten all about that episode: didn’t the show’s own producers actually retcon it out of existence or something later on?
And Mr. Excellent has a good point. I recently re-watched the first few episodes of the show, before they had abandoned the grittiness in favor of “The ship is always fully repaired by the end of the episode”, and I was surprised at how much better I liked them when they had no resources.
My favorite Voyager episodes featured the Hirogen.
Bad ass hunters similar to The Predator.
It started with Janeway using their communications array to contact earth in Hunters. Eventually we got a WWII episode with the crew’s memory wiped. The Hirogen had setup their own war game. The Killing Game The Killing Game, Part II
Season 4 was one of their strongest seasons. Besides the Hirogen that season had the 2 part Year of Hell. Where the ship gets the crap pounded out of it.
Anther good one was an episode where Janeway finds another earth Ship. They were using a captured energy being for power. Breaking every moral rule humans have. I don’t know which season 5??? maybe or 6
The next generation shows had a weird attitude towards Native American beliefs considering that religion supposedly doesn’t exit any more. Picard probably wouldn’t take spiritual advice from a catholic priest and would dismiss his beliefs as outdated, but would be respectful if a Native American offered them. There was that episode where Chakotay wanted to introduce Janeway to her spirit guide/animal. Through the whole episode I wondered why Janeway would give a shit.
There’s a really, really good Neelix episode. Where his past as a smuggler almost destroys his position on Voyager. He runs into his old partner and is tempted to trade something from Voyager for a map. Very strong character episode.
Neelix also is responsible for a lot of bad episodes. Especially when he gets jealous of Kes. Jealous Neelix is not easy to watch.
Space elevator is a good Neelix / Tuvok episode. They have to stop bickering and work together.
Season 4 was exceptional, Scorpion was a great 2-parter. In a way though, I kind of wish they had done more with Jeri Ryan. I think she’s a really great actress- there was an episode where The Doctor was stuck in her body, and she nailed most of his mannerisms perfectly. Seven was a fun character for consistent humor, but I always felt that they hit a wall after the “I’m a human who still feels like a borg” thing got old, and just kept ramming it whenever they wanted some character development.
On a related note, the first episode where they put her in charge of the ship’s children was hilarious.
Seven: You are acting beyond the conditions of the play exercise. Retire to the adjacent corner and execute punishment protocol 7.
Kid: Aww, but I don’t want to.
Seven: Comply! to the rest of the group Resume having fun, this cycle only lasts for another 15 minutes.
Best episodes: Death Wish (The only time Voyager approached real classic Trek) The Q and the Gray Q2 Future’s End and Relativity Author, Author Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy Eye of the Needle Worst Case Scenario (A holodeck episode but it’s fun. Plus, Seska) Bride of Chaotica! (Captain Proton rules.) Think Tank (George Costanza) Pathfinder (Barclay!)
There’s a similar original Trek with the same theme. A Captain breaks moral rules to survive. In TOS a bad captain takes sides in a civil war. Kills thousands with his Phaser rifles. Kirk shows up to rescue them and figures out how they survived.
Janeway had to walk a fine line. She did break Starfleet rules to save her crew and survive. But, she never completely went bad. She didn’t enslave aliens or murder to survive.
Remember the bad episode where Voyager is taken over (with Seska’s help)? The crew is dumped off on a desolate planet and have to survive.
Bad because it involved the <yawn> Kazon. Also a ridiculous Rambo style save by that insane crewman that is a serial killer. He was confined to quarters and avoided getting kicked off the ship after the Kazon took over.
But, real world. That’s what would happen if a Starship landed in a strange Galaxy with no help. A powerful Alien group would grab the ship and learn the technology secrets. The crew would be killed or dumped off somewhere.
I always fanwanked this by postulating that the alpha quadrant tended to be pretty impressively ahead on the technology curve compared to the delta quadrant: I recall a bunch of different episodes where the Voyager’s crew compared technology with local powerhouses, and they tended to come out ahead. There was one episode where a bunch of con men (and one woman) even managed to make money by getting people to buy Federation memberships, because they assumed that the Voyager’s protection would let them defeat all of their enemies.
That’s the episode I thought about when I read the thread title. In fact, when I saw the episode itself, I thought “This is the worst Voyager episode ever!”
Probably the most disappointing episode was the Return of Kes. Kes was one of my favorite top 3 characters. I was very excited when rumors started she was returning for a special. She returned all right. All pms and pissed. I never understood what the heck the episode was trying to do with the character. They could have easily invented a new nasty character to do the same stuff. A totally wasted Kes moment.
Worst episode was where they find Amelia Earhart (and others) in suspended animation.
the “37ers”
The episode on “Lost in Space” with vegetables in rebellion made more sense than that.
“bride of Chaotica” and “Year in Hell” were good. As others suggested, a lot more episodes like the latter would be better. Maybe spend a season trying to recover from a disaster???
