There’ve been a lot of episodes of Star Trek over the years. Over the course of 12 television series, there are currently 890 episodes in total. I now hold the dubious distinction of having watched all 890 of those episodes.

I watched quite a bit of Voyager when it was originally on the air, but live TV being what it is, I missed several episodes, especially in the later seasons. So I hadn’t watched every episode of Voyager until recently. With 172 episodes, it’s a lot. Many of the episodes were fun, but there were many filler episodes as well that I struggled to get through.

Overall Impressions

It starts off promising. A Starfleet crew and a Maquis crew are stranded far from home and have to work together to get back to Earth. There’s a lot of potential for crew conflicts, however, the Maquis get assimilated into Starfleet almost immediately and all that potential conflict evaporates.

It’s hard not to compare Voyager to the early 2000s Battlestar Galactica series. Both shows depict a starship far from home trying to get through hostile territory without support while hunted by cylons/borg. Voyager even encounters a ship similar to theirs but with an evil crew (the Equinox) like BSG‘s Pegasus. Voyager predated Battlestar Galactica, but didn’t do as good of a job with the same concept.

Surprisingly, Voyager also reminded me of Gilligan’s Island, since there are several episodes in which the crew almost gets back home, but something prevents them at the last moment.

One cool thing about Voyager is they might have more big celebrity guest stars than any other Star Trek series: Prince Abdullah of Jordan, Jason Alexander, Ed Begley Jr., Andy Dick, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Lori Petty, John Rhys-Davies, Sarah Silverman, and many more.

People sometimes accuse Star Trek: Deep Space Nine of being too religious in opposition to Gene Roddenberry’s atheist vision, however I think religion is actually a bigger part of Voyager than DS9. In DS9, only non-Starfleet aliens are religious, but on Voyager, we’re told several crew members have spirit guides. Faith even triumphs over science in the season 3 episode “Sacred Ground” which is as far from Gene Roddenberry’s vision as you can get. Season 4 has a reference to a sacred Vulcan temple and praying priests, which doesn’t sound very logical to me. Even the former Borg drone Seven of Nine has a religious experience in “The Omega Directive”. There’s a lot of “trust your instincts/intuition” talk throughout the series, which I found annoying since trusting your instincts/intuition/gut is just another way of saying trust your bias. Sure, your bias is sometimes right, but it’s sometimes wrong. You shouldn’t blindly trust it.

There are a lot of continuity problems with Voyager. Kes is from an alien species that’s supposed to age ten years for every one year humans age, but she remains the same age for four seasons. In the second season, Samantha Wildman reveals she got pregnant before the first season, but she isn’t showing yet. Her daughter, Naomi Wildman, should still be a baby in season 4, but she’s suddenly about ten years old. To be fair, Star Trek: The Next Generation did the same thing with Worf’s son Alexander instantly aging up from baby to ten-year-old over the course of about a year. I guess children who are part alien just age much faster than purely human children do.

The spiritual Chakotay uncharacteristically doesn’t believe B’Elanna’s near death experience is real in the season 6 episode “Barge of the Dead” which I count as a continuity error. In the season 6 episode, “Dragon’s Teeth”, Janeway wishes she had a Betazoid crewman, even though I’m pretty sure a previous episode established they had multiple Betazoids on board.

Since I’m already nitpicking, I’ll also point out that according to an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, nobody gets headaches anymore, but the crew of Voyager gets them all the time. The Vidiians call hologram technology primitive in one episode, but are impressed with it in another. We learn that Seven of Nine can resurrect people who’ve been dead for three days in one episode, but this never comes up again, despite people dying right in front of her. Did she and the rest of the crew just forget she had this amazing power? Harry Kim is sometimes shy around women and sometimes he’s a ladies’ man. He has a girlfriend back home early on who’s forgotten about as the series progresses.

It’s annoying how often one character tells another to “slow down” after they’re already finished talking (and they weren’t even talking quickly in the first place). There’s a lot of time loop episodes, but they’re usually fun. Captain Proton (a Flash Gordon style holodeck adventure) is a lot of fun too. I feel like Voyager was bloodier than the other Trek series. There weren’t a lot of bloody episodes, but I felt like there was more blood on this series than other Trek shows.

In the early seasons, Neelix fluctuates between being a comic figure, a tragic figure, and a jealous boyfriend. It’s also not entirely clear what his relationship with Kes is until a bit later on when it becomes clear he’s her boyfriend. And he’s not a good boyfriend. He’s constantly talking down to her and treating her like a child. Her character is supposed to be only two years old with a life expectancy of about nine years, so it does make sense for him to treat her like a child, but it doesn’t make sense for him to also be her romantic partner. He’s so much older than her, it’s creepy. (Also, the actor portraying Neelix was about twice as old as the actor portraying Kes.)

Overall, I found the characters of Neelix and Tom Paris annoying. Chakotay and Harry Kim didn’t stand out much. They usually just blended into the background. I liked Kathryn Janeway, B’Elanna Torres, and Kes, but my favorite characters were Tuvok, Seven of Nine, and The Doctor.

Voyager felt derivative. There are a lot of malfunctioning holodeck episodes like Star Trek: The Next Generation. They also have several “mind bleep” episodes like iDeep Space Nine. With one exception, they continue TNG‘s tradition of not punishing main characters who disobey orders or go rogue.

I feel like Voyager played more loose with science than other Star Trek shows. There was definately more technobabble than other series, and they solve their problems by teching the tech far too often. There’s an improbably large amount of connections to Earth out in the Delta Quadrant (the 37s, the sky spirits, the dinosaurs, etc.). The portrayal of Native Americans is problematic since they didn’t use Native actors and their Native American consultant turned out to be a fraud.

The crew supposedly want to get back home to the Alpha Quadrant as fast as possible, yet they’re constantly leaving away teams on planets, disappearing somewhere for a few days, then returning. They’re constantly sending shuttles out with instructions to rendezvous with the ship later. The shuttles get delayed so often, you’d think they’d stop doing this. Also, what’s up with all the conferences? They’re in an unfamiliar quadrant of space. How do they keep learning about these conferences, let alone get invited to so many?

Why is security on Voyager so bad? Shuttles routinely get stolen with the teleporter and tractor beam being sabotaged. It’s stupidly easy for people to get around Voyager’s security every time the plot demands it, which makes it look like Tuvok is incredibly bad at his job.

Season 2

The episode “Threshold” brings up a lot of questions. Why would the evolutionary endpoint for humans be amphibians? Evolution is random, it doesn’t have a goal. Why does Chakotay decide to abandon the offspring? Why would being everywhere at once cause you to evolve anyway? Why did Tom die and come back to life? What’s this dark matter nebula Neelix mentions? A lot of bad science in this one.

The episode “Meld” forgets that Betazoids read minds. TNG established that the reason Troi can only read emotions is because she was half-human. Her mother could straight up read minds, but this episode makes it seem like Betazoids are all like Troi.

In “Death Wish” a Q tires of immortality and wants to die. Overall, this is a good episode, although Q sexually harassing Janeway is pretty bad. Right after this, we get another suicide episode in “Lifesigns” which felt too soon to return to the same well.

I think “Tuvix” is probably my favorite episode of Voyager. It’s a good ethical dilemma episode. Janeway ultimately decides to murder one person to save two lives. It’s rare for her to get put into a situation where there are no good choices and she has to decide between two bad things.

Season 3

It was fun to see Sulu again in “Flashback” and it was cool recreating the scene from Star Trek 6. Unfortunately, the plot relies on the debunked concept of repressed memory, so it’s another bad science episode. (It’s nice that “Retrospect” in season 4 corrects this. In that episode, what’s first thought to be a repressed memory turns out to be a false memory, which is what repressed memories actually are.)

In “Future’s End” Tom Paris is suddenly an expert on the twentieth century. Why wasn’t this mentioned before now? And why is Harry Kim in charge of the ship when he’s the lowest ranking member? If Janeway is comfortable with him being acting captain, why not give him a promotion? Harry Kim never getting a promotion the entire series really started to bug me.

Season 4

Seven of Nine is introduced in season 4 and becomes the star of the show with several episodes focused on her. Having the collective experience of thousands of species, Seven shouldn’t need anything explained to her, but she acts like she doesn’t understand love, small talk, etc.

In the first four episodes of the season, they lose a shuttle three episodes in a row. They can’t have very many shuttles left. The romance between Tom and B’Elanna at the beginning of season four is quite good. Star Trek has never been very good at depicting long-term romantic relationships, so I’ve got to give them props for this. (The less said about O’Brien and Keiko’s sitcom-style bickering in TNG and DS9 the better.)

“Nemesis” is a good episode about the pitfalls of propaganda featuring Predator-looking aliens and a surprise twist. A good line: “I wish it was as easy to stop hating as it was to start.” Another of my favorites.

“Revulsion” about a holographic entity disgusted by organic life is a good horror episode.

Season 5

Wow. Janeway suddenly doesn’t think killing is wrong. Right before blowing up a Malon ship, she quips, “Time to take out the trash.” In another episode, she doesn’t care at all when another Malon ship is destroyed and their shuttle doesn’t seem able to escape a nebula. Janeway used to value the lives of her enemies, but not this particular species for some reason.

“Nothing Human” is a messed up episode. The Doctor creates a new holographic lifeform based on the Cardasian doctor Crell Moset. The real-life Crell gained medical knowledge by performing unethical experiments on Bajorans. This medical knowledge is necessary to save the life of B’Elanna. After Crell saves B’Elanna’s life, The Doctor murders Crell, because he doesn’t approve of how he gained his medical knowledge.

This is messed up because the crew of Voyager doesn’t have a similar ethical struggle with using Seven’s Borg-assimilated knowledge, which is just as ethically dubious as Crell’s. Crell didn’t ask to be created, and he wasn’t evil, he was just programmed with knowledge gained through evil means. He points out The Doctor’s own medical knowledge was derived from unethical experiments done on animals. A lot of American medical knowledge comes from unethical experiments done on slaves. Likely there’s a lot of tainted knowledge in The Doctor’s medical database. If Crell deserves to die for being programmed with knowledge obtained unethically, so does The Doctor.

I think “Thirty Days” is the first time we’ve seen a main character on Star Trek actually get punished for disobeying orders. In earlier episodes, Janeway said locking someone up wasn’t practical in their situation and didn’t even think of demoting someone before, but now here we are. It’s nice that Paris disobeying an order actually has consequences for once.

I loved seeing guest star Lori Petty in “Gravity”, but she’s hardly in it. Too bad they just made her the love interest of the week. Tuvok mind melding with her without asking consent first is problematic.

It was fun to see The Doctor be evil in “The Fight” and again in “Equinox”.

In “Warhead”, they act like nothing happens during the night shift, but why wouldn’t it be just as eventful as the day shift? There really isn’t any night or day in space after all. (To be fair, TNG was guilty of this too.) Why is Harry Kim considered a senior officer when he’s still just an ensign? He mentions having five years experience, but everybody else on board has at least that, so it’s not the flex he thinks it is.

“Equinox” is reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica’s Pegasus, an evil version of Voyager. Janeway is once again willing to kill to get what she wants. (What happened to her between seasons 4 and 5 that made her stop valuing life?) New crew members join Voyager at the end, only to never be seen or referred to again.

Season 6

I like the Ferengi stages of acquisition mentioned in “Alice”: infatuation, justification, acquisition, obsession, resell. It’s messed up that nobody cares when Alice dies even though she’s a sentient AI. The crew of Voyager just don’t care as much about sentient lifeforms as other Star Trek crews.

The episode “One Small Step” prompts several questions. Why is Harry on both the night and day shift? Why is everyone already in uniform when called to the bridge in the middle of the night? When they “cut power” the only thing that happens is the lights dim a little? Did they really cut power?

In “Fair Haven”, Chakotay admits he uses the holodeck for sex and Janeway has a romantic dalliance with a hologram. I think this is the first time this has been explicit. The ethics of dating a person you can reprogram at will are explored, which is nice.

I found “Virtuoso” particularly unwatchable. The Doctor singing is usually annoying, but him teaching aliens about music is particularly annoying.

“Memorial” is a good episode about the purpose of memorials. The crew end up trying to balance second-hand trauma caused by experiencing an atrocity versus the value of remembering atrocities of the past.

The Borg kids don’t appear until over half way through season 6 in the episode “Collective”. I thought they were a bigger part of the series than they actually were. (I also didn’t expect Barclay to appear so frequently.) I like this episode, but I’ve got to say the Borg keep getting less and less threatening each time they appear. They were first presented as an unstoppable force in TNG, but after we see them defeated over and over and over, they’re just not threatening anymore. BSG did a better job of keeping the Cylons consistently menacing, although that wasn’t perfect either.

Janeway is a bit hypocritical in “Child’s Play”. She condemns Brunali for using a genetic weapon against the Borg when she was ready to do the exact same thing a couple episodes ago.

“Muse” breaks the prime directive, but it’s a fun episode involving an ancient Greek-style play. It examines the power of fiction to change minds and thus affect the real world.

In “Unimatrix Zero”, Harry wonders why Tom got his lieutenant rank back while he’s still an ensign after six years. No one responds. Cold. Just cold.

Season 7

“Critical Care” is a good criticism of medical systems that prioritize the rich. In “Body and Soul”, Jeri Ryan does a great job playing The Doctor. In “Shattered”, different parts of the ship are in different time periods. It’s a fun way to revisit past episodes.

“Repentance” is a death penalty episode. It points out racism causes the innocent to be executed (and on the flip side, wealth allows some people to get more lenient sentences). It also explores how untreated brain damage can cause someone to be violent.

In “Prophecy”, The Doctor tells Kim he either has to kill or mate with a Klingon woman who is interested in him. It’s treated as a humorous subplot instead of rape. Seriously, if Klingons only give their love interests the options of “you either have to kill me or mate with me”, all Klingons reproduce through rape. Who came up with this subplot and thought it would be funny?

I liked “Friendship One”. Before the Prime Directive, Earth sent a probe filled with scientific and cultural knowledge out into space, but it caused nuclear winter on the planet where it ended up because the people didn’t have the maturity to receive the knowledge.

The last episode, “End Game”, was disappointing. Out of nowhere, Chakotay and Seven are suddenly a couple, Tuvak suddenly has a disorder never hinted at before, and Harry Kim suddenly wants to go home more than anybody else when this hadn’t been previously established.

It’s disappointing that, except for the occasional two-parter, Voyager stuck to the episodic format. The final season of Deep Space Nine was one continuous story, but for the most part, you can watch Voyager episodes out of order and it doesn’t matter. There was no lead up to the last episode, we were just suddenly hit with it.

While Voyager had many good episodes, overall, there were more misses than hits. Compared with the other 11 Star Trek series, it’s my least favorite.