Need to vent!!!! Ok, so I’ve been trying to watch Trek in chronological order. I’ve never seen DS9, Voy or Enterprise all the way through. And as a lifelong Star Trek fan, I feel like it’s my duty to watch them all, especially now that I saw Picard Season 1 and the series has tie ins to previous Treks. Loving DS9, but OMG, I’m just starting Voyager Season 3 and I’m finding it a real slog. It feels like work. Maybe it’s because I got used to television series having arcs, but then again, why don’t I have a problem watching TOS or TNG reruns? I do like the cast and characters, except for Neelix who is the Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek. I know Kes eventually dies, but I do like her and find her to be a better character than Neelix. It’s painful to watch an otherwise good cast act like this guy is nice to have along. Even the way he talks, his pronounciation, ugh! There are entertainin, enjoyable episodes including some with good morality tales, but there’s a definite lack of...what’s the word...urgency?...in the episodes. I don’t feel like, “OMG! I gotta watch the next one!” The show feels like a prolonged series of side quests. Voyager is trying to get back to Alpha quadrant but it mostly feels like they’re strolling their way back. I just saw the Ferengi episode (it was entertaining) but there was the wormhole and when they missed the opportunity it was like, “Shucks ::snaps fingers::” I like Janeway, Chakotay, the Doctor even Harry Kim is likeable. But is it me, or did they need better writers and a few cases of Red Bull? Im six episodes into season 3 and I don’t feel like I know these characters any better than I did when I saw the pilot. Don’t get me wrong: they are mostly mildly entertaining episodes and few bad ones but also very few great ones. I feel like it should be called Star Trek: Sidequest
I mean the problems with Voyager have been discussed to no end. The lack of character development, the lack of direction etc, the lack of urgency despite their situation etc. You'll never really learn much more about the characters, because there isn't really anything more to discover. But they all (except Harry) have a couple of good episodes during the run of the series, even Neelix (it's called Mortal Coil) Also there's the excellent Year of Hell two parter in season 4. The series gets a bit more of a direction once Seven comes on board. Kes had a lot of potential and could have provided similar direction, but it seems they never really made their mind up about her. I also think Voyager was around the time when 90s trek showed its age. A lot of the characters seem like they are just there to fulfill star trek roles; The Vulcan for Vulcan storylines, the Klingon for Klingon storylines (and you bet we gonna shoehorn the Klingons in, even if they're half a galaxy away!) The not-quite-human to provide commentary about what it means to be human. etc. The series bible also talks to no end about how the characters who eventually became Neelix and Kes are there to provide commentary about humanity (because we haven't seen hat in Trek before )
I actually did like the episode with Harry and Tom in a prison. That seemed like a Harry episode to me. I guess it might seem like I’m dredging up old sentiments about Voyager, kinda like a new Star Wars fan complaining about Jar Jar 20 years later. But since I’m seeing Voyager for myself the first time, these feelings are new to me.
Should I just skip Season 3? I’m watching the Belanna episode where the aliens are getting into her head. This is like a rejected recycled TNG episode.
Voyager has some great episodes, and it has some really bad ones. But mostly Voyager is just 'meh. Spoiler: (Un)Popular Opinion But its still vastly superior to Enterprise, JJTrek, Discovery, and Picard. Bazzzzinga
Why do most aliens have earthy, hippieish towns? People of the land. Ugh! Star Trek was definitely running on absolute, low grade fumes. A copy of a copy of a copy.
I definitely had issues with Picard, but I like it much better than Voyager overall. JJTrek, I loved. It was the sort of Star Trek the franchise needed, but they squandered the potential of the first film by taking too long to make a second. And the third was not memorable.
You'll want to see Future's End I/II and Macrocosm is fun, in different ways. Personally I love Before & After and Real Life... also Worst Case Scenario. I think there's too much to pass up, although I agree S3 has some stinkers and yes, overall I think it's valid to say some of Voyager is like work to watch it. You're almost to the Seven of Nine era from S4 and things pick up there. (If you jump, just don't skip Scorpion Pt.I) Just as an observation to anyone attempting to do an all-watch: it's an exciting goal, but wouldn't skipping an entire season negate the effort of watching everything else? I think it would be kind of disappointing to watch *all* of Star Trek but exclude a single season of Voyager. If anything, by watching the bad, it will elevate your position on debating good Trek. A final note of encouragement: sometimes bad Trek = good Trek. Best of luck with your watchings!
Don't watch in order? Why not watch some of the good episodes first, then circle back for some of the more lackluster outings?
It's all Star Trek and therefore better than no Trek. I'd have gladly had a show like Voyager in the Trekless gap before Discovery. I might not particularly like Voyager, but I've watched it all and purchased it.
No I just meant I didn't have anything particularly new to say about Voyager's shortcomings.And more importantly, don't really have any way to make them better. The same reason why almost every planet where we see nature has the same vegetation as the LA area.
Just go into VOY with different expectations. It's "TNG-lite," and it can be an entertaining diversion while cleaning the house and washing the dishes or something.. Kor
Well, i didn't share your current experience when I watched VOY straight through for the first time a couple of years ago.... But, i can understand why you feel things are dragging if you're still in early season 3. S3 gets better at about the halfway point, and progressively better after that. IMHO VOY seasons 4-5 are the best of the series, followed possibly by 6, so it does get better. But, again, I like the standalone structure and somewhat lighter tone of the series (makes for easy rewatches without commitment), and I love the characters for the most part, so take my opinion with a grain. I do agree on Neelix, but I got to like him more later on... he has his moments.
Voyager gets better after season three. .I had the same experience and reaction when I watched the show for the first time. The episodes seemed... really bizarre, as did the characters and enemies. It did seem like took work to get through it sometimes. The additon of Seven was a huge improvement to the show, but an episode called "Blink of an Eye" from season six caught my attention. There is a scene where the doctor beams down to the surface and is down there for only a minute or so, but to him two years have passed. He met people, and formed relationships and took up hobbies.When he beams back aboard voyager he is so happy to see everyone. That episode seemed to be my "turning point". I watched through the series several more times over the next couple of years, and each time it got better until it became my favorite Star Trek. Frankly it seems closer to TOS to me than TNG does. Another episode "Infinite Regress" ranks among my favorites just for Jeri Ryan's performance. In this episode, a piece of Borg thechnology is salvaged and beamed aboard, but it causes Seven to assume the personalities of people who were assimilated. Forget Star Trek, just watching Ryan shift from personalty to personality is amazing. Great stories like "Latent Image", "Gravity", "Living Witness" and "Scientific Method" take on a whole new life when you get to the point where you stat to care about the characters. All of the series had something that could be improved upon... I think Voyager's ensemble was initially missing a few crucial ingredients. The most successful of the series had one of more standout alien characters that pulled people in. TOS had Spock, TNG had Data and Worf, DS9 had Odo, the Bajorans and Worf again. These are characters that are fightng some sort of inner duality, and they're aliens, and they're interesting. Spock was Vulcan, but half human and struggling with this humanity, Data was the exact same character only reversed... an emotionless android seeking to understand humanity and become more human. Worf was a proud Klingon with a rich back story, living among humans. Voyager had Kes and Neelix. There was no chemistry, no interest, and no story. The human characters NEED the Spocks and the Datas and the Worfs and Odos and Quarks and the Bajorans. When Seven was added, the got thier conflicted alien to push things along, and the show got better. "TNG Lite" is pretty ridiculous. If I had to be trapped in tbe Delta Quadrant with Picard or Janeway, I'd pick Janeway ten times over. They are two different shows. Frankly, I think TNG had a better ensemble but not necessarily better episodes. As I said above, initially VOY had a lopsided ensemble thanks to Neelix and Kes, and wierd episodes that were supposed to make you think that they were 70,000 LYs away. That being said, I can name 20 VOY episodes that I consider to be better than TNG episodes. Neelix has his moments. The trouble is, the character needed to have more than moments. The actor was a boob and he played the character like a boob. He had almost NO chemistry with anyone else in the crew including Kes. His scenes with Tuvok were meant to be lighter moments and they don't live up to their potential. Neelix was a big lump of wasted potential... and you have to make peace with it or he takes away from everything else on the show. Neelix is like the old "Lost in Space" TV show. You watch that show and remember how profoundly BAD it is. But you watch it anyway. You watch it because between all the stupid campy overacting, the terrible writing, the bad dialogue, the ridiculous plots and silly aliens... hidden between all of these things... once in a great while you catch a tiny gimpse of what it could have been.
My favorites: Emanations, The 37's, Flashback, Future's End, Future's End Part II, Macrocosm, Distant Origin, Scorpion, Scorpion Part II, Year of Hell, Year of Hell Part II, Message in a Bottle, The Omega Directive, Living Witness, Drone, In the Flesh, Timeless, Nothing Human, Latent Image, Bride of Chaotica!, Dark Frontier, Relativity, Equinox, Equinox Part II, Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy, One Small Step, Pathfinder, Blink of an Eye, Virtuoso, Collective, Life Line, Critical Care, Body and Soul, Shattered, Renaissance Man The ones I hate: The Fight, Muse
I find that Neelix improves greatly once Kes leaves. The writers give him so more depth and tone down some of his most annoying traits, and they also give him some storylines beyond just him being clingy and jealous all the time. Spoiler: Just in case you care about a minor spoiler Kes doesn't die.