For a recommendation, IMO, Torres' story really picks up in the season 1 episode Faces. Also in season 1, a good episode for Neelix is Jetrel. Since season 1 is short, it probably won't be too long before you get to them.
I officially began my journey through all Star Trek on October 9th...
- Thread starter Shalashaska
- Start date
Of the non Janeway cast, Tim Russ's Tuvok does pick up a quite bit. He is never exciting really, but he quietly becomes one of the centerpieces of the show and his performances get more and more polished in the role. He is very much a stoic anchor character for the series. By the end he is probably the most traditionally Star Trek'ish character on the show. The one you actually find yourself speculating on how he fits into the broader trek universe.
kes, when they remember to use her is wonderful. However she suffers greatly from that "Dr. Crusher" syndrome, where the writers wanted or needed the character, but rarely had any good ideas what to do with them. However when they do come up with something for kes, they more often than not hit it out of the park. It just doesn't happen all that often.
Harry Kim, Harry Kim is there for things to happen to. Mean things. Unpleasant things. Degrading things. Dreadful things. Fifty Shades of Janeway things. Harry is what everybody wished they would do to Wesley, if only the law would have allowed it. Harry is like Chekov or Sulu if Kirk really really hated them. There are not a lot of Harry centric episodes, and even fewer that don't revolve around something awful happening to Harry. But one of them stands as what is arguably the single best episodes of the series and a standout franchise episode. ("Timeless" for those wondering)
Torres comes into her own. Much like Bashir over on DS9, it took a little time for the writers to find the best ways to play her, and more importantly who to play her against. Once they stop mainly bouncing her against Chakotay and swing her over to Janeway and Paris things improve. Her character and arc can be a bit uneven. There are limits to what you can do with a character who's primary character trait is "pissed off". But she does improve.
Chakotay, what to say. Your initial impressions are completely 100% accurate and do not change at all throughout the 7 years of the series. Chakotay centric episodes are a good time to take a bathroom break with the DVD still running. Every one of them is pretty much just a retread of "journey's End". he has no real character arc. No real changes, improvements or personality. No chemistry with the rest of the cast. he simply is.
and then there is Neelix... just accept Neelix as evidence that Trek writers really and truly do hate the audience and take their revenge in petty ways. I find he gets more believable and interesting if you watch him through the mental filter of "Janeway is an actual psychopath, and Neelix is her twisted way of inflicting pain and suffering on the crew". It would actually explain so much. Up to making him the cook.
kes, when they remember to use her is wonderful. However she suffers greatly from that "Dr. Crusher" syndrome, where the writers wanted or needed the character, but rarely had any good ideas what to do with them. However when they do come up with something for kes, they more often than not hit it out of the park. It just doesn't happen all that often.
Harry Kim, Harry Kim is there for things to happen to. Mean things. Unpleasant things. Degrading things. Dreadful things. Fifty Shades of Janeway things. Harry is what everybody wished they would do to Wesley, if only the law would have allowed it. Harry is like Chekov or Sulu if Kirk really really hated them. There are not a lot of Harry centric episodes, and even fewer that don't revolve around something awful happening to Harry. But one of them stands as what is arguably the single best episodes of the series and a standout franchise episode. ("Timeless" for those wondering)
Torres comes into her own. Much like Bashir over on DS9, it took a little time for the writers to find the best ways to play her, and more importantly who to play her against. Once they stop mainly bouncing her against Chakotay and swing her over to Janeway and Paris things improve. Her character and arc can be a bit uneven. There are limits to what you can do with a character who's primary character trait is "pissed off". But she does improve.
Chakotay, what to say. Your initial impressions are completely 100% accurate and do not change at all throughout the 7 years of the series. Chakotay centric episodes are a good time to take a bathroom break with the DVD still running. Every one of them is pretty much just a retread of "journey's End". he has no real character arc. No real changes, improvements or personality. No chemistry with the rest of the cast. he simply is.
and then there is Neelix... just accept Neelix as evidence that Trek writers really and truly do hate the audience and take their revenge in petty ways. I find he gets more believable and interesting if you watch him through the mental filter of "Janeway is an actual psychopath, and Neelix is her twisted way of inflicting pain and suffering on the crew". It would actually explain so much. Up to making him the cook.
I believe that in some circles, Chakotay was referred to as "the potted plant."
I'd rather think he is a cut-rate Picard, level-headed, but not inspiring. He stays on the sidelines until it's time to tell Janeway that she's taking things too far. Once accomplished, his personality crawls up into a ball and he does exactly what Janeway says. There are maybe one or two times the pattern is broken, and they prove to be interesting.
Well Pot and Plant would explain much. Just not sure if it reflects on the actor the writers or the producers. Oh wait I've seen "Threshold". It's all three. Although will give the actors a pass for "Medicinal" reasons.
It's less about starship cleanliness and more about in-universe conceptualization. Not sure why people don't get that..
It's unfortunate that no episode in Voyager's first or second season approached the quality of the pilot episode.
It's unfortunate that no episode in Voyager's first or second season approached the quality of the pilot episode.
A little more pot and a little more plant might have made Chakotay more interesting: "there's peyote in that nebula."
Wasn't that pretty much the main plot point of every Chakotay centric episode. "Oh Captain, I must go off alone, strip naked, and light em up the sacred wacky weed. If I start screaming about the giant purple spiders again this time. Just have the Doctor hit me with something really good. It's OK It's my religion. Really! I wouldn't bullshit you about this Captain. Low leave me be I need to go down to this planet, depants, and chase the White Rabit! It's my peoples sacred Holy Day. We call it Tuesday!"
Yes and no. They whitewashed it with the ridiculous akoonah. Moreover, most of those experiences were Chakotay just being a amateur anthropologist.
Voyager to me is a lighter, more colorful version of Next Generation (when DS9 chose to become darker and grittier) and it is closest to TOS of all the spinoff series. It brought back the pure fun of "what's on the next planet?", instead of the political troubles of the Federation. (Can you tell I hate the Maquis episodes?)
And while the cast wasn't the strongest (that's DS9), I actually prefer them over TNG's and ENT's. Chakotay may have been a prop mistakenly cast as first officer, the rest of them had more energy in their scenes than TNG's always professional colleagues.
Voyager did have a lot of problems. I agree with the ones that others have pointed out. But it was still my favorite. I wonder if the fact that some fans are frustrated with the unrealized potential is the reason that Voyager has the largest number of fanfictions on Fanfiction.net.
IIRC, the first four episodes of Season 2 were actually shot as Season 1 episodes but aired at the beginning of S2, FWIW.
Unfortunatly the premise of VOY hardly lead itself it being a light and colourful show. Some might argue in terms of character interaction DSN is actually closer to TOS. But we all bring our own viewpoints to things.
In the UK given that TV was behind if you bought them on VHS tapes those S1 episodes that aired as part of S2 in the USA where released as S1 in the UK.
I couldn't help but feel the change of direction for Way of the Warrior delayed what I really wanted to see..the Dominion arc pan out. I really didn't want to see more Klingons either at that point. So even though it was a good episode, it keeps it from being one of my favorites.
One way of looking at it is by how much TWOTW delayed what should have been the next major step in the escalation of the war. Homefront was supposed to be the finale for Season 3, leading into a cliffhanger. That was pushed to being a season 4 premiere, with Adversary being a natural lead-in. TWOTW displaced Homefront, but only by three months.
Furthermore, if Dorn had not been added to the cast, Behr would have pushed for Robinson to become a series regular. I started a thread about the subject, and many felt that it would not have been beneficial to the series. Nevertheless, had Behr been successful, there would have been more character episodes for Garak. Another way to look at it: we would have had more Cardassian episodes. Instead of delving more deeply into Klingon politics, we would have gone deeper into Cardassian politics ... much more so than the series did. I can see that some people would have preferred that direction. Nonetheless, this alternative probably would not have accelerated the Dominion War arc by much.
I've never gotten involved in any Jake discussions so I don't know how others feel about him, but I really liked him too. When he was a kid that is, as an adult I found him to be an irritating and poorly written character. As part of his writing career Jake starts to do some work as a journalist and from that point on I found him insufferable.
The Visitor is probably the single best self contained episode of DS9 and one of the top 5 overall Star Trek episodes. As you noticed, sitting up there with the Inner Light. It was letting Star Trek do what it does best. Personally it might be my all around favorite Star Trek episode. Just having so many layers. Up to and including the old Jake setup, which is essentially a true story of how a young college student hunted down reclusive author J D Salinger. I think the only other episode that has its level of impact is "In the Pale Moinlight". But that's less of a standalone and more of an ongoing arc story.
Going forward DS9 as a whole just gets better (well except for Profit and Lace). But The Visitor was its one moment of truly perfect transcendence. Much like The Inner Light was to TNG. The one that sticks with you all by itself.
The Klingon stuff delays the Dominion progression by about half a season. By mid season it starts ramping up again. By and large the decision to add Worf to the show to boost the ratings was a good one. Although it will be 4 or 5 episodes before they really start doing anything with him. he was a last minute addition so the writers hadn't had time to turn the ship yet. The next couple of episodes are mainly decent. But then mideseason starts a really strong run, beginning with Starship Down and running straight through to Paradise Lost you have 6 straight episodes of greatness. (Ok granted regarding "little Green Men" Futurama did it better within 2 weeks of this episodes air date. But it is still fun.)
Going forward DS9 as a whole just gets better (well except for Profit and Lace). But The Visitor was its one moment of truly perfect transcendence. Much like The Inner Light was to TNG. The one that sticks with you all by itself.
The Klingon stuff delays the Dominion progression by about half a season. By mid season it starts ramping up again. By and large the decision to add Worf to the show to boost the ratings was a good one. Although it will be 4 or 5 episodes before they really start doing anything with him. he was a last minute addition so the writers hadn't had time to turn the ship yet. The next couple of episodes are mainly decent. But then mideseason starts a really strong run, beginning with Starship Down and running straight through to Paradise Lost you have 6 straight episodes of greatness. (Ok granted regarding "little Green Men" Futurama did it better within 2 weeks of this episodes air date. But it is still fun.)
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Oh and if you want a laugh about The Way of the Warrior, and a bit of reflection on the magic of practical effects. By the time they filmed this episode the old ST III Bird of Prey was in pretty bad shape and the wings no longer worked. So they improvised. Many of the BoP's you see on screen, especially in large numbers... are Hallmark Christmas ornaments. Let's see CGI top that!
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