Lipton's Cliff Note Reviews of Every Episode of Voyager

[Lipton]

Hi there, Lipton here! You may remember me from a bygone age. I have returned to give a sort of quick review of every episode of voyager, which indicates (among other things) my rating (on a scale of 1-10) for the episode, and how critical the episode is to the development of the show's plot. This could be useful for people you are introducing to Voyager, i. e. what episodes should you use to try to turn them on to it and what episodes you might be able to skip if they don't have the time/interest to watch all 168 episodes.

I will post to this topic (hopefully regularly).

First Season

1. Caretaker (2 hour premiere) - The newly commissioned starship Voyager and a Maquis raider are flung into the remote Delta Quadrant by a powerful entity known as the Caretaker. (Synopsis from Memory Alpha)

Review: Ah, the pilot that started it all. Decent for a pilot. Establishes the show's premise and the main characters, etc. etc. The showrunners were obviously trying to strand Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, but the crew possibly overlooked one or two ways to avoid being stranded... the writing was a bit sloppy there, which will come up again, as we shall see. This trend could be attributed to Voyager being a "side-project" for most of its run while the primary Star Trek series at the time was DS9.

Rating: 7/10 - The acting of the guest cast is exceptional and the direction and effects are pretty good in this too, raising it from a 6 to a 7. Would be higher if the Maquis hadn't donned those Starfleet uniforms so quickly - they should have kept their Maquis garb for a few more episodes.

Critical?: The most critical episode of the series, obviously.

 

[hux]

As I said in the other Caretaker review thread, Chakotay accepts the position of first officer far too quickly (one wonders if he isn't secretly delighted at his circumstances) and yes, the Maquis in general jump into their uniforms with ridiculous ease. They clearly want to get to the "lost in the a Delta quadrant" premise as soon as they can make no effort to be subtle or interesting to get there

Did every character have to be introduced in the pilot? Couldn't some of them have been integrated over a few episodes. Why throw everyone together at once so clumsily. It really did feel like....let's get them all together and lost in the Delta quadrant immediately and then start churning out episodic cheese

None of the characters get much development in Caretaker other than Paris (B'Ellanna growls a lot, Kim's is a little boy who wants his mommy, the doctor is a bit rude etc) I often wonder if they focused on Tom so that they could strongly establish that HE IS NOT LOCARNO !

And let's not forget that the caretaker was an idiot. I would have preferred an alternative explanation for the crews being lost in the Delta quadrant

If I'm honest, I really don't like the pilot

5/10

 

[Starborn Dragon]

You know what?

i genuinely agree with Janeway's actions in this episode.

The Kazon would've used the array to dominate the sector she was in, and quite possibly in the long run, even the entire galaxy.

And now here's a nightmare scenario for you.

Imagine if the Borg had come across this technology and what they would do with it. I believe that if the Borg got a hold of this technology it would make any transwarp hubs to shame. And the Borg would be that much more powerful.

 

[Lipton]

Starborn Dragon, I do agree that the array had to be destroyed, however they could have left the tricobalt devices onboard the array in a big heavy box with a time-bomb detonator - the Kazon didn't have transporters, remember? Thus they could have destroyed the array and gotten home... but Voyager would have just been a two hour movie instead of a 7 year series.

hux, I agree with you on those points. I would give it a lower score too had some of these things not been addressed a little in Parallax - although we didn't have enough episodes like that... the transition from Maquis to Starfleet was still too fast.

That brings us to:

2. Parallax - Investigating an apparent distress call, Voyager becomes trapped inside the event horizon of a quantum singularity. (Synopsis from Memory Alpha)

Review: The singularity is nothing, really, but something for the crew to deal with to develop relationships... This bottle episode is basically a much needed show to develop the characters more... particularly the dynamics of Janeway and Chakotay, the character of Torres and how they're all going to work together. The Doctor is extremely angry at being turned off and on at the whim of everyone who strolls through sickbay and has a problem where he's shrinking (comic relief). Seska and Joe Carey (who has a broken nose courtesy of B'Elanna) are also introduced, all very well I might add.

Rating: 9/10 - The quantum singularity stuff is hard to wrap your head around, but other than that the show is good - better character writing than the pilot IMO.

Critical?: It's nearly as critical as the pilot, what with all the character development. It could almost be the third hour of Caretaker.

EDIT: Rating Corrected, Review Amended.

 

[Catarina]

Parallax> What seemed parallel to me was I could have sworn I saw it on TNG....which became a constant feeling watching VOY.

 

[hux]

Parallax was standard Trek anomaly stuff which I don't really mind (Star Trek fans complaining about anomaly episodes is like Fall guy fans complaining about stunts.......how many Fall Guy references do you hear these days....you're welcome)

My only issue with it was the whole, lets make that unqualified, didn't get through the academy, Maquis rebel the person responsible for the ships most important element

Chakotay makes sense due to his Starfleet credentials and sure even B"Ellanna makes some sense based on her natural abilities but not this early on in the show. She and Carey should have spent season one competing with each other. Both submitting ideas for each anomaly, improvement, solution etc. Then Carey should have been the one to recommend B'Ellanna as the more gifted candidate and then the two of them should have become good pals (maybe even leading to more Carey appearances)

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Carey, people often say we should have seen more of him. If he hadn't died just before getting home, you know died poignantly, would anyone care? If he was just not seen after a certain point? Would anyone be saying "gee whiz, why did they just drop Carey like that?"

He's no Cutler.

 

[Jeri]

Nor Rostov.