The least disliked episode 2021 - VOY Season Two

[BlueStuff]

Our addictive biyearly game of rapid elimination returns - now able to include Disco's third season as well as the debut years of Picard and Lower Decks. It's generally a lot of fun, providing a chance to mentally revisit those episodes you may not have thought about in a while. With that in mind, why not play again?

So, here's the game. The basic idea is your standard elimination game. I'll provide a list of the episodes for each season and you need to eliminate your least favorite or the one you deem the 'worst.' Please provide an EXPLANATION for why you are eliminating your choice and be sure to copy and paste the list with your choice removed. Finally, leave at least 2 eliminations by other posters before you eliminate another episode.

No tactical voting! You cannot remove an episode just because you feel they would threaten your preferred episode's chance to win. Pretty simple. Enjoy!

Hall of Champions
2011 - Meld
2013 - Living Witness
2017 - Blink of an Eye
2019 - Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy
2021 -

Season Two

The 37s
Initiations
Projections
Elogium
Non Sequitur
Twisted
Parturition
Persistence of Vision
Tattoo
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Alliances
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
The Thaw
Tuvix
Resolutions
Basics, Part I

 

[BK613]

Axing the silly The 37s. Talk about small universe syndrome. This episode would be hard to swallow if it were on an Alpha Quad show.

Initiations
Projections
Elogium
Non Sequitur
Twisted
Parturition
Persistence of Vision
Tattoo
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Alliances
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
The Thaw
Tuvix
Resolutions
Basics, Part I

 

[Oddish]

The expected event does not happen, as Alliances gets bumped off. Voyager tries to make a few alliances to help her survive her situation, epic failure occurs, and Janeway makes an eyeroll inducing motivational speech.

 

[Farscape One]

Even though it was produced in season 1, "TWISTED" gets taken out. Boring, and possibly the worst of the aired season 2, other than "ELOGIUM". Even "THRESHOLD" is more entertaining.


Initiations
Projections
Elogium
Non Sequitur
Parturition
Persistence of Vision
Tattoo
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
The Thaw
Tuvix
Resolutions
Basics, Part I

 

[Brennyren]

On the one hand, "Parturition" ends the excruciating jealous-Neelix storyline. On the other hand, it's a whole episode about the excruciating jealous-Neelix storyline, by way of the too-familiar "enemies work together to become friends" cliché. Just painful.

Initiations
Projections
Elogium
Non Sequitur
Persistence of Vision
Tattoo
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
The Thaw
Tuvix
Resolutions
Basics, Part I

 

[BK613]

Say goodbye to Basics P1. Not a fan of Seska, the Kazon, or the death of Suder.

Initiations
Projections
Elogium
Non Sequitur
Persistence of Vision
Tattoo
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
The Thaw
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Qonundrum]

Dang. So much for 37's... Horrible season opener with silly contrivances... and how the lead acid battery can still be useful despite being in freezing conditions for 400 years. Usually bad science is made up for with a strong philosophical bent. Well, guess what that episode also lacked...

Twisted started out interestingly enough for me, but the big reveal and ending made it shatter like toffee glass in a third rate action movie.

So anyway, season 2 has a few good episodes - as much as I sometimes do rag on episodes, it's mostly out of disappointment. So back on hand with the more-disliked episode, two questionable stories come quickly to mind... but one at a time:

Non Sequitur's name is perfectly titled. A show that has a ship thrown 70K light years away from Earth should be doing more and other than fritterfarting about on Earth and not even as any dream sequence requiring more than two minutes, which is still far more episode padding and time-consuming than Al Bundy. (Yes, it's another alternate reality :snore: but those hadn't been done beyond level of "cliche" yet. The worst of it all is that the episode really can't find a strong dramatic sense - despite otherwise being clever in not cueing or clueing in the audience so we're as bewildered as Harry. It's also otherwise a good Harry story except we know little of him already. There's a Trek trope, analyzing why people need to know and emotionally connect to someone for any dramatic situation to work, as opposed to any old Tom, Dick-- or Harry. That's surely not intentional here?)

What's left:
Initiations
Projections
Elogium
Persistence of Vision
Tattoo
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
The Thaw
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Seven of Five]

Elogium is my first pick.

There is some dodgy thinking in regards to Ocampan pregnancies only happening once in their lives. Coupled with an overenthusiastic performance from Jennifer Lien, and the episode is quite subpar.

Initiations
Projections
Persistence of Vision
Tattoo
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
The Thaw
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[BlueStuff]

What a blah season, full of totally bland instalments like Tattoo; a useless Chakotay episode.

Initiations
Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
The Thaw
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[May 20]

I'm axing The Thaw. I really hate clowns and I really hate most of the torture Harry episodes.

Initiations
Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Deadlock
Innocence
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Orphalesion]

Deadlock. The whole duplicate Voyager thing is just so dumb, the dialogue is annoying (though that's a given for many Voyager episodes. IDK I freaking HATE it when Janeway starts babbling about her childhood) and worst of all...out of all the crewmembers who died...the duplicate of Harry Kim is the only one who gets to cross over/live.Why Janeway? We could have been rid of Harry right then and there...why did you have to save the Kimmster?

Initiations
Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Threshold
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Innocence
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Seven of Five]

It's Threshold's turn to go now. It's a bad episode, full of stupid science, and a total lack of tension. It's the Spock's Brain of VOY, in that it is full of unintentional humour to make the time pass quicker. I rank it above any of the Fair Haven dreck that's yet to come, for example.

Initiations
Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Prototype
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Innocence
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Qonundrum]

Deadlock. The whole duplicate Voyager thing is just so dumb, the dialogue is annoying (though that's a given for many Voyager episodes. IDK I freaking HATE it when Janeway starts babbling about her childhood) and worst of all...out of all the crewmembers who died...the duplicate of Harry Kim is the only one who gets to cross over/live.Why Janeway? We could have been rid of Harry right then and there...why did you have to save the Kimmster?

Because the added split screen filming costs would be too much to bear?

We barely knew Kim so there's no real payoff or tension to the real one dying, and a convenient step-in takes place.

This episode's main trope was done better in the Red Dwarf trope "Demons and Angels" too.

The next entry is "Prototype". Torres saves a robot! It is sentient - what a surprise! It kidnaps her! It thinks she is a "Builder", an original term! It wants her to build a prototype of a process that can allow them to mass construct replacement power units without Builders! The AI robots can't think for themselves without the organic equivalent of a dongle! That's actually good since you do not want AI to do this on their own as they'll go all Cylon/Kaylon/ceylon in no time. TBH, it's not a bad premise, but it's not exactly a good one either. It probably works better in the day when dongles were the norm. If AI is so much smarter than biological life forms and by a magnitude greater than real life...

Initiations
Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Meld
Dreadnought
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Innocence
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[BK613]

Dreadnought is next for me. Another AQ crossover episode? I thought the point of throwing the ship to the far side of the galaxy was to tell new stories about a new area of the galaxy.

Initiations
Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Meld

Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Innocence
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Seven of Five]

Innocence is next for me. It's not bad, but not great either.

Initiations
Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Meld
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Removing Initiations. Good to see Nog but maybe the worst of “Kazons are pretty much less organized Klingons” stuff.

Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Meld
Death Wish
Lifesigns
Investigations
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Qonundrum]

There's some life in "Lifesigns", but some nitpicks stand out: Holograms are a bending of light as controlled by computer yet the soul is moved on over into a hologram. TOS did the "move the soul to a robot". So have various spinoffs; TNG did it the most unnervingly with The Schizoid Man. Doctor Who still did it best.

Also, in a strange turn of events, the romance subplot was surprisingly good (all things considered) and Trek (of all incarnations) has a track record so low, one wonders why they'd still bother. Going to pin this on the actors. Even more, since it's the EMH (think "computer controlling the program" and "for specific purpose of dealing in emergency medical situations") emulating emotional responses. It's a bit far-fetched and later seasons go off the deep end with the EMH...

Meanwhile, Seska continues her treachery... this is the one thing with the Klingon Kazon I liked; a "Maquis" going all-out with finding a third party as she betrays not only the Federation but the Maquis. But she still was a Cardassian spy... a really desperate one.


What's left:

Projections
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Maneuvers
Resistance
Meld
Death Wish
Investigations
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Farscape One]

"COLD FIRE" fizzles out compared to what's left.


Projections
Persistence of Vision
Maneuvers
Resistance
Meld
Death Wish
Investigations
Tuvix
Resolutions

 

[Oddish]

Out of all the crewmembers who died...the duplicate of Harry Kim is the only one who gets to cross over/live.Why Janeway? We could have been rid of Harry right then and there...why did you have to save the Kimmster?

She could only save 5-10... but she could have sent a few more over. But I agree about Harry and the baby. They had no living counterparts.

Besides, she wasn't done torturing Harry yet.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Removing Resistance. It was the only one on the list I had to look up the description. And when I read it I could still only barely remember it.

Projections
Persistence of Vision
Maneuvers
Meld
Death Wish
Investigations
Tuvix
Resolutions