The Least Disliked Episode 2023: VOY Season 3

[BlueStuff]

Our addictive biyearly game of rapid elimination returns - now with more shows than ever. 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 favourite 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 it would threaten your preferred episode's chance to win. Pretty simple. Enjoy!

Star Trek: Voyager
Hall of Champions
2011 - Meld
2013 - Living Witness
2017 - Blink of an Eye
2019 - Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy
2021 - Scorpion (I)
2023 -

Season 3

Basics (I)
Flashback
The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Sacred Ground
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Warlord
The Q and the Grey
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Darkling
Rise
Favorite Son
Before and After
Real Life
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Sakonna]

Let's start with the unwatchable "Darkling." Picardo is horrible in his plot thread, that's such a nails-on-a-chalkboard performance. And the Kes thing! The way everyone is harassing her about prioritizing paperwork, like all good people do, instead of sexy adventure. But PAPERWORK is what matters in life! This ep is intolerable.

Basics (I)
Flashback
The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Sacred Ground
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Warlord
The Q and the Grey
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Rise
Favorite Son
Before and After
Real Life
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Warp 10 (Pepperoni)]

A fair amount of stinkers in this season! I'll go for "Sacred Ground".

Listening to Delta Flyers I learned that this was the first episode that was directed by Robert Duncan McNeill and he had a lot of interesting insight into how that came about and his process. Regardless, the episode itself is a boring slog so it's gotta go.

Basics (I)
Flashback
The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Warlord
The Q and the Grey
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Rise
Favorite Son
Before and After
Real Life
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Takeru]

The Q and the Grey. The episode is ridiculous, they technobabble their way into taking the entire ship to the Q continuum, the crew grabs some Q weapons and almost immediately take control? The other Q cannot zap the weapons away or simply kick the entire Voyager crew out of the continuum? The other Q don't know a thing or two about either their weapons or their own home that would give them an advantage?
Even if humans can handle Q weapons the situation is like zapping 100 roman soldiers into the present, giving them M16s and pretend they can just waltz into the White House and pentagon and dictate terms and the entire US government and military folding because "They have our weapons, nothing we can do!"
I don't even dislike the idea of a Q civil war and the crew helping solving the conflict but it should have been done through diplomacy, a bunch of starfleet officers brute forcing their way into the heart of the Q continuum and bossing godlike beings around was absurd.


Basics (I)
Flashback
The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Warlord
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Rise
Favorite Son
Before and After
Real Life
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[cosmic mouse]

Warlord
eliminated because it's one of two on the list that I can recall very little about, which means I must not have thought much of it when I saw it. And, now that I looked it up briefly I can see why: Kes-centric (not a particular fan- no offense to her fans here) and when I read the summary I still can't recall any details. Begone!

Basics (I)
Flashback
The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Rise
Favorite Son
Before and After
Real Life
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Oddish]

Real Life gets the boot because the whole point of the Doc going through the pain and loss that he does is effectively wiped by the Big Red Reset Button.

Basics (I)
Flashback
The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Rise
Favorite Son
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Sakonna]

"Flashback" What a messy misfire! I am still angry at it for wasting Sulu and Rand on such a dramatically inert, nothing story.

Basics (I)
The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Rise
Favorite Son
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[ReddishAlert]

Rise is my choice- I think the episode is tedious and the resolution a little silly.

Basics (I)
The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Favorite Son
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Brennyren]

"Basics II" broke me a little bit where VOY was concerned, not least because I could hardly believe we were really supposed to wonder if they'd get the ship back! Gee, you think maybe? Having the baby turn out to be Culluh's get after all made Chakotay's season-two journey, and the crew's supporting him, pointless, and cost him one of his rare chances for character development.

The Chute
The Swarm
False Profits
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Favorite Son
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Farscape One]

I consider season 3 to be the worst of VOYAGER because so much of it was middling, at best. Particularly episodes in the middle of the season. (I said pretty much the same about TNG season 7. This does not make Jeri Taylor look good, because she was the head writer for both seasons.)


How was "FALSE PROFITS" not eliminated first or second for this season? There's a VERY strong case for it to be the worst episode of the entire series, let alone the season. I am rectifying that now.


The Chute
The Swarm
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Coda
Blood Fever
Unity
Favorite Son
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Sakonna]

"Coda" is so goddamn boring. It's not the worst episode of the season, but it's the flatest and most lifeless, so consequently it's the one I have seen the least.

The Chute
The Swarm
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Blood Fever
Unity
Favorite Son
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Farscape One]

"Coda" is so goddamn boring. It's not the worst episode of the season, but it's the flatest and most lifeless, so consequently it's the one I have seen the least.

An episode about the 'death' of a lead character is lifeless... this is possibly the most ironically true statement anyone can say about an episode of any series.

 

[Seven of Five]

Most of the stinkers have gone, apart from Favorite Son. Well nit wmy more. VOY's worst member is in a dreadfully dull story.

The Chute
The Swarm
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Blood Fever
Unity
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Farscape One]

Taking out "BLOOD FEVER".

This was just a bad episode.


The Chute
The Swarm
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Macrocosm
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Unity
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Sakonna]

"Macrocosm" is doomed by terrible CGI. Script would have been fine, if it was something they could actually execute.

The Chute
The Swarm
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Fair Trade
Alter Ego
Unity
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Sumire]

As a (rare?) fan of Harry Kim, I’m jettisoning “Alter Ego” because its setup involves Harry ostensibly falling in love with a hologram, something that must seem like schoolboy silliness at the outset, and then getting jealous (never a story beat I enjoy) over that same “hologram” preferring Tuvok. Why they felt it was necessary to thoroughly trash poor Harry’s romantic skills yet again to jump start this plot, I’ll never know.

The Chute
The Swarm
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Fair Trade
Unity
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Farscape One]

Taking out "THE SWARM".

Interferometric pulse... just terrible technobabble. (Which I only discovered it was a real thing a few years ago.)

But the thing that really gets me is this was basically the beginning of Janeway being inconsistent. For 2 years, she was very much for following Starfleet rules and protocols, and then she decides to violate another power's territory on her own. She goes back and forth, starting from this point, on following Starfleet rules and throwing them out the airlock. And this continued for the rest of the series. This set a bad precedent for her character... if not for Mulgrew's talent, Janeway would have been a far worse character.



The Chute
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Fair Trade
Unity
Before and After
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Oddish]

An episode about the 'death' of a lead character is lifeless... this is possibly the most ironically true statement anyone can say about an episode of any series.

Still, I get a kick out of Janeway telling Death to go back to hell without her.

As for the list, I keep getting the ninja treatment. But I'll displace "Displaced". An intriguing premise is wasted on a generic "takeover" story. It's less dumb than "Rascals", but they could have done so much more with it.

The Chute
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Fair Trade
Unity
Before and After
Distant Origin
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Sakonna]

I actually think the production work in "Fair Trade" is great -- that station looks huge and impressive -- but there's no saving this dog of a script.

Its inexcusable they effectively cut Kes from it. This is a story where she needed to have a presence.

The Chute
Remember
Future's End (I)
Future's End (II)
Unity
Before and After
Distant Origin
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)

 

[Seven of Five]

I'm stuck now with a good last lot of episodes.

I like the Future's End two-parter, but part 2 doesn't reasonably conclude the story well.

The Chute
Remember
Future's End (I)
Unity
Before and After
Distant Origin
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion (I)