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Rating:  -
Great series. Pretty cheesy, but fun to watch. Not a huge star trek fan. I only got into it because I got sick and watched way too much tv and they re ran voyager pretty often. I enjoy it. Pretty safe for non-trekkies.
Rating:  -
After three initial seasons that were disappointing given the tremendous potential that the show initially displayed, Season Four was on nearly every level a great improvement. The reasons were mainly threefold: a slight increase in a serial rather than episodic approach to the narrative, a sharp improvement in the overall writing, and Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine.
Although the premise of the series would have seemed to demand a serial narrative, for three seasons the show doggedly persisted in an almost pure episodic approach. Thus, a show that seemed to be structured around the idea of a developing narrative showed almost no development whatsoever. In Season Four an episodic format was still adhered to, but more and more elements carried over from one episode to another. As a result there was a marked feeling that the show was going somewhere. It also helped that they abandoned some of the races that were prevalent in the first seasons. It seemed silly that after two years of faster than light travel the Kazons still seemed to be everywhere. But with Season Four, the Kazons have been left behind. Also, it seemed increasingly absurd that Neelix would possess detailed knowledge of planets this far out. But in Season Four, after one odd lapse where after being propelled past Borg space he still had knowledge of some of the territory (I suspect that the production had wrapped before the producers decided that he would no longer be familiar with the upcoming regions), Neelix's knowledge has been exhausted. This is partially replaced by Seven of Nine, who as a former member of the Borg collective possessed knowledge of species everywhere.
I'm not quite sure how to account for the improvement in the writing. But suffice it to say the almost endless number of hackneyed, derivative stories that populated the first three seasons largely disappeared. There were few episodes that were truly awful. Most were at least interesting.
But along with the increasing number of serial elements, far and away the greatest improvement in the series came from the arrival of a new character, Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine. Sadly, this came at the expense of Jennifer Lien's Kes leaving the show. There have been a number of rumors surrounding Lien's departure from the show, some of them unflattering to Lien but also apparently completely unsubstantiated. The truth appears to be something like this: there was a sense that they needed a new character to improve the show and Seven of Nine was therefore created. But because of budgetary concerns they needed to eliminate an opening credits character. As Season Three was winding down the producers were leaning toward killing off Harry Kim (and at the end of the finale his situation was dire), but during the hiatus they changed their minds and decided to eliminate Kes instead. I personally lament the loss of Kes, but there is absolutely no question that Seven of Nine is a huge improvement. She is, in fact, one of the most compelling characters of any show in the Star Trek franchise. There had, of course, been a former member of the Borg initiative in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. But this was the first attempt to have a Borg as a fulltime character in the show. Jeri Ryan did an amazing job in the role. And for males (and perhaps females as well), she was equally impressive in the manner that she filled out her body tight uniform (not since the sixties BATMAN and Catwoman has a cat suit been put to such amazing use). A majority of the top moments of the season involved Seven of Nine in a crucial way. My personal favorite is the late Season Four episode "One," in which the whole crew is put in stasis so that they can cross a radiation-filled portion of space. Seven, because of her Borg nanites, can resist the radiation. Even the Doctor has to be shut down because of the manner in which the radiation interferes with his program. Seven started the season as part of a hive mind, sharing the consciousness of millions. She ends it heroically fighting her own loneliness as she strives to save the lives of everyone on Voyager.
Still, the show remained, like all the shows in the Star Trek franchise, a victim of its own timidity. It never takes risks, but instead constantly gives the appearance of risks. Take the pair of episodes "Year of Hell." On these episodes Voyager gradually takes more and more damage, until by the end it was a completely battered hulk. Now, on a superior series, like BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (the new one, not the old one) or FARSCAPE, they would have left the ship precisely that way, battered and with many of its systems destroyed or at risk. We then would have seen the attempt to deal with the damage become a major part of the narrative. But VOYAGER is not capable of this kind of risk-taking. Instead, at the very end of the episode, they do a "re-set" and everything on Voyager is exactly as it was when it began. In their defense, not many shows were in 1997-1998 taking many chances. In fact, the first show that really introduced genuine risk into its format was BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, whose first full season was during this same year (it debuted in the spring of 1997 with a truncated Season One). THE X-FILES had engaged in some minor risk taking, but it was only on BUFFY, with such events as Angel reverting to Angelus and the death of Jenny Calendar that we first got a show where the unthinkable actually started happening. FARSCAPE was the first Sci-fi series that drew upon the lessons of BUFFY (there is before this the case of BABYLON 5, but I won't go into that here). Unlike on VOYAGER, on FARSCAPE the unimaginable would sometimes happen (and in appreciation explicit references to BUFFY were made in homage). This timidity on VOYAGER is frustrating given the excellence of the show's premise and the excellent group of characters. I believe that BUFFY (along with THE X-FILES) rewrote the rules of how adventure shows on TV are done (in a host of ways, from serial format to the very long story arc to the body count), but VOYAGER unfortunately was one of the last significant Sci-fi series developed in the pre-BUFFY era.
Finally, big kudos to the show for doing what the vast majority of shows ever made fail to do: VOYAGER actually got significantly better in its fourth season. Most shows by this point are running on fumes, but VOYAGER improved. Not many shows are able to do this. They are in this way quite exceptional.
Rating: -
A mostly solid batch of "Voyager" episodes, bolstered by the addition of ex-Borg "Seven of Nine" to the show's roster of characters. In the special features (always quite varied and generous in these Trek boxed sets), it's fun to watch the producers tell us with a straight face that Seven's sex appeal factor had little to do with what they were trying to accomplish when they created the character. Then you see the, uh... extremely fit Jeri Ryan in her Seven of Nine jumpsuit and say, "yeah, right". But, still, Seven IS an intriguing character- kind of a mix of Spock (holds science and logic in high esteem) and Data (is fascinated with the ways of humanity)- and she brings a lot to these episodes.
If you were lukewarm towards "Voyager" during its original run, you might want to give the series another try on DVD (but start at the beginning). Like most TV, the show really plays much better without all the commercials. I can understand if you want to wait until the price drops a little, however. Individual season-long sets of "Star Trek: Voyager" are still priced fairly high.
April 2008 postscript: Paramount has drastically dropped the prices of all its "Trek" DVD sets. There's no excuse now to pick up this and other great "Trek" seasons.
Rating: -
I have been watching Voyager since i was in fith grade. This season is what caught the attention of a fith grader and made him sith still for a full hour every night almost religously! Now dont get me wrong, this show is by no means for kids. It can be graphic and violent and, to tell you the truth, just plain disturbing with some of the themes, but that makes for a very engaging show. I have enjoyed it for years and i hope that you will too!
Rating: -
Wake up Paramount! Take a cue from your sales on the STTNG sets. Now that you have finally come to your senses and dropped the prices on the sets to where they should have been in the FIRST PLACE, I would imagine that all of the hold-outs (like me) are now buying them.
See, it works like this, 30 minute shows on DVD, for a season, have earned a fair market price of $25-35. So, since Star Trek episodes are an hour long, that means a fair doubling of the price puts it into the $50-70 range. So, $60 is your sweet spot.
You will be able to take in the obsessive fans with your initial insane pricing points, but everyone else looks at your current price tags, especially with the shoddy packaging that you are still foisting on us, and just laughs and waits for the inevitable price drop. So, do us all a favor and fire your marketing and sales people, drop the price to where it is supposed to be, and earn your sales. Nobody sane is going to pay more than $60 for a season of an hour long/episode TV show on DVD, period.
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