This episode was one of my favourites from the early seasons Absolutely outstanding performance from Mulgrew
I didn't care for caretaker that much but the first half had tons of gems... the tuvok stranded with kids ep, the suder plotline, the one where the doctor makes a holographic family, plus the dinosaur one which I like for some reason. I'd pick the first half. But there's a lot of good ones later on too.
Perhaps unfair for me to cast my vote, as I've only watched seasons 1-2 and some of 3 (and a couple of episodes from season 4)... but I voted for seasons 1-3, mainly cause I felt Voyager had so much potential in those early episodes that - through season 2 and beyond, was never realised.
Yes! I loved the Suder plotline. I wish he were still around. Weird since he was a total psychopath but I dunno, very interesting character. I'd say the earlier episodes provoked a wider range of emotions in me. The latter episodes typically leave me feeling indifferent or angry.
I find much of seasons 5-7 to be unwatchable. Seasons 1-4 showed a lot of promise, even if it wasn't on the same level as TNG or DS9, but the show started to fall apart for me after that.
I don't mind the first half (a lot of good episodes in there), but if you were to put a gun to my head, I'd go with the second.
There's probably a good season worth of episodes I really enjoyed in the first three seasons versus three times that in the last four seasons. This reminds me though there are probably a handful of episodes in the early seasons I don't think I've ever seen. Might be nice to have some "new" episodes to watch sometime soon.