Tonight, just completely random, I decided to watch Season 7's Homestead, the episode where Neelix leaves. As I was watching this episode, which gave Neelix a better send off than the rest of the crew, I was thinking for all the negative pub Neelix as a character got, some of his episodes were the best. It seemed like each season you had a serious Neelix show, some of which included Tuvok like:
Season 1: Jetrel
Season 2: Tuvix
Season 3: Fair Trade
Season 4: Mortal Coil
Season 5: Once Upon a Time (I don't like Flotter, but Neelix as godfather giving Naomi some hope was the best part of the episode)
Season 6: Riddles
Season 7: Homestead
The one thing these episodes (Except maybe Tuvix had in common was it really allowed Phillips to shine in the role. It's a shame really he was used so much as comic relief because the serious Neelix shows were some of the best episodes of his character arc. I'm not sure of the characters, except for Janeway, Doc, and Seven, there was this much consistency each season. Neelix may not be my favorite character and he could get annoying at times, but man when he got his season's serious episode, Ethan Phillips did a bang up job making Neelix shine.