The Most Disliked Episode of VOY, 2023 Edition - Season 1...

[Farscape One]

Welcome to our bi-yearly 'Most Disliked Episode' games! Now that the 'Least Disliked Episode' games hosted by BlueStuff (who inspired me to create these games, so thank you very much for paving the way) have concluded, we can begin the opposite side of that coin.

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 most favorite or the one you deem the 'best.' 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 because you feel they would threaten your preferred episode's chance to win. Pretty simple. Enjoy!

Hall of Champions (or Failures?)
2011 - "THE FIGHT"
2018 - "FAVORITE SON"
2019 - "SPIRIT FOLK"
2021 - "FURY"
2023 - "FRIENDSHIP ONE"


Season One -

"CARETAKER"
"PARALLAX"
"TIME AND AGAIN"
"PHAGE"
"THE CLOUD"
"EYE OF THE NEEDLE"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"STATE OF FLUX"
"HEROES AND DEMONS"
"CATHEXIS"
"FACES"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Farscape One]

And here we are, VOYAGER season 1. Honestly, I think it's a better first season than many give it credit for. It definitely felt like the Delta Quadrant was a different place. Personally, I look at the season as including the 4 holdovers by UPN, and I feel the season overall is better when you do that. It truly suffered when UPN did that just to get a month headstart on the other networks at the time. (They did the same the next season, and I feel the same there, too.)

But to the topic at hand, my first vote will be the pilot, "CARETAKER". This was the best overall pilot of the franchise, and I'm including the current era. (DS9 had an edge on the characters feeling alive and real, but some pacing issues make it lose some points. And the Temporal Cold War definitely lowers "BROKEN BOW"... otherwise, that one would beat "CARETAKER".)

A terrific plot, well paced, everyone getting good scenes. This pilot had an advantage the others never did... a big part of the premise, the Maquis, were already well established in TNG and DS9 late in the previous season, so less time was needed for that exposition. And that was the best decision, because it allowed more time for the Caretaker situation to be figured out methodically. The pieces are put together by the crew at the same time as the audience. Also great action in just the right amount in the right places.


"PARALLAX"
"TIME AND AGAIN"
"PHAGE"
"THE CLOUD"
"EYE OF THE NEEDLE"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"STATE OF FLUX"
"HEROES AND DEMONS"
"CATHEXIS"
"FACES"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[CitadelZombies]

I'll save "Phage". I've always found the Vidiians a lot more interesting than the Kazon. Definitely a more tragic villain, and this is a good introduction to them.

"PARALLAX"
"TIME AND AGAIN"
"THE CLOUD"
"EYE OF THE NEEDLE"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"STATE OF FLUX"
"HEROES AND DEMONS"
"CATHEXIS"
"FACES"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Oddish]

"Time and Again" is my first save. It was my first exposure to Voyager, and I still enjoy it: the cheesy outfits, the Calico submachine guns, and the characters still finding themselves.

"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EYE OF THE NEEDLE"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"STATE OF FLUX"
"HEROES AND DEMONS"
"CATHEXIS"
"FACES"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Farscape One]

Saving "FACES" next.

This has a lot of great in it. Vidiians are here, which is one of the best aliens ever made for STAR TREK... not only a fantastic makeup design, but a built-in moral dilemma just by their existence. It is a great horror story. It also plants the seed of Tom and B'Elanna, because it is here that she sees for the first time he is not a bad guy. (His conversations with her were very mature and I think she realized that. From then on, it slowly became a friendship and into marriage.)


"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EYE OF THE NEEDLE"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"STATE OF FLUX"
"HEROES AND DEMONS"
"CATHEXIS"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Brennyren]

"State of Flux" was one of the better Chakotay episodes, with the first officer holding on to his integrity in the face of grave challenge. And Tuvok and Chakotay actually make a pretty good investigating team; pity they didn't work together more often! Martha Hackett made Seska's feelings vivid and powerful.

"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EYE OF THE NEEDLE"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"HEROES AND DEMONS"
"CATHEXIS"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[CitadelZombies]

Save "Eye of the Needle". While I felt it was a bit too early to make contact with the Alpha/Beta Quadrant, the twist regarding what year R'Mor is from and his fate is a really good one. The reaction from the crew is some great acting from the cast this early in.

"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"HEROES AND DEMONS"
"CATHEXIS"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Farscape One]

I'm going to go with perhaps an unpopular choice next... "CATHEXIS".

It wasn't until I came to this board that I found out this one is not well regarded, and I don't understand why.

It's a cool story, well acted, and especially well directed. The dark lighting made for a very creepy atmosphere and mood. The story helped continually build a sense of tension and paranoia that makes this so memorable. This is a good one to watch in October!

It's also one of the very few times we actually see a hand phaser used in wide dispersal beam.


"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"HEROES AND DEMONS"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[BlueStuff]

Heroes and Demons - a nice, fun 90s Trek holodeck outing.

"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"JETREL"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[BlueStuff]

I'm going to go with perhaps an unpopular choice next... "CATHEXIS".

It wasn't until I came to this board that I found out this one is not well regarded, and I don't understand why.

Probably because it's Chakotay and his plotlines were based on totally fraudulent mumbo-jumbo made up by a con artist.

 

[Seven of Five]

I quite like a lot of S1 VOY, even if the premise of the Maquis crew was wasted by putting them in Starfleet uniforms. A bit torn on a few episodes, so I'll save Jetrrel. A great look at Neelix's tragic past, and is the beginning of the great serious Neelix episodes that became a yearly thing.

James Sloyan was as good here as he was on the other Berman shows he appeared on.

"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"PRIME FACTORS"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Phaser Two]

I am beyond thrilled that "Cathexis" was saved, and so early too - it's my S1 fave.

I'll save "Prime Factors." I like the integration of Tuvok and Harry and the crew's ongoing character development. I also enjoyed the Sikaris natives and liked the way the plot surrounding the spatial projector unfolded. As a bonus, Alastria looked, uh, fun to visit.

"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EX POST FACTO"
"EMANATIONS"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Sakonna]

"Ex Post Facto" I rewatch all the time. Fun noir nonsense.

"PARALLAX"
"THE CLOUD"
"EMANATIONS"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Brennyren]

"Parallax" is on a very short list of episodes where the promised Starfleet-Maquis tension still a) existed, and b) played a part in the story. I liked Chakotay's insistence that Maquis besides himself be considered for staff positions. "I will not be your token Maquis!" he said. He ended up being pretty much that, but that's not the fault of this episode.

"THE CLOUD"
"EMANATIONS"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Oddish]

I liked Chakotay's insistence that Maquis besides himself be considered for staff positions.

Yeah... but B'Elanna getting promoted for assaulting a superior didn't sit right with me, and never will.

The Cloud is my last save. It has Janeway's immortal line: "There's coffee in that nebula." Plus, it shows how even a well intentioned Starfleet crew can unwittingly cause harm.

"EMANATIONS"
"LEARNING CURVE"

 

[Qonundrum]

"Time and Again" is my first save. It was my first exposure to Voyager, and I still enjoy it: the cheesy outfits, the Calico submachine guns, and the characters still finding themselves.

While, to us, the outfits are cheesy and/or reminiscent of a certain song, one major tenet (IMHO, YMMV, ETC) of sci-fi is to show and explore other cultures on other planets. Dress everyone up in the same off-the-shelf clothing like what's at the store right now, and questions arise: (a) how badly will it date itself after or even during airing, (b) it's not very creative now is it, and (c) why make sci-fi - a genre that encourages some creativity and to sell and bring the audience into this new world rather than being directly spoonfed ours? Acting above the costume is essential.

And elevator muzak of the sort that's in an elevator filled with a bunch of gassy newspaper flingers flinging both the daily news as well as a chemical byproduct of beans'n'broccoli aside, "Time and Again" is definitely a decent (if not mildly derivative at times) slice of sci-fi. Not just for a civilization's sartorial taste but for the plotting. It's arguably influenced by TOS's "All Our Yesterdays", but even TNG was being influenced by TOS (some more directly than others)... and all sci-fi is influenced by something. How they make it feel like "their own" is the trick.

if anything, this one relies a tad much on treknobabble (another subspace anomaly, and I can't exactly react to that by saying "Squee!") -- even then, the result and exploring a society of happily clueless folk isn't uninteresting. After all, I wasn't going all "Squee!" when DS9's Little Green Men did the 8,675,311th cause for time travel (in one of Trek's lamest tropes by now*) and despite that setup, the remainder of the episode is 99% a class act. (The military person doing a 4th wall and reciting the show's main theme is a tad dorky, but that's about it.) Quite a good episode, but I digress and almost everyone knows I never do that!

* just say that Cuz' Gaila there sabotaged the ship to go into the nearest star's orbit but instead made a boo-boo with the coordinates and the result is that the ship just did a slingshot around and they got propelled back in time (and space, of course, but that didn't stop the Orb of Time from hurling the Defiant back to space station K7 either...)

​

And, yep, it's the musical interlude time - featuring a song and video that are ahead of its time, oddly:

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[Qonundrum]

Saving "LEARNING CURVE"

It's got a more interesting idea - getting Maquis to realize they're in the same boat (literally) - that's unique to VOYAGER and what we should be expecting, than another "any Trek could'a'dunnit" episode tropes in... Okay, VOY would clearly be a bit too-familiar in the allegedly-strangest-land-ever-told routine, but give it credit every time it tries to eke a bit more than the bog-standard stuff. Dealing with the Maquis faction is definitely up VOY's alley as much as the strange new corner of the universe is, so one out of two isn't bad. That said, the cause for some of the episode's troubles truly is cheesy... literally, since the shiny new technology is based on biological bits that are not hermetically sealed or wrapped in any safety container. Not even that flimsy bit of plastic that you end up eating with the cheese and then you wonder if you should eat the flimsy wrapper as sometimes it's got more taste than said cheese... but there I go digressing all over the floor again. Why not have a sick crewmember simply cough on a panel in Engineering - that way the story could also double as a PSA for calling in sick instead of spreading it to everyone else. What happened to the air filters on the ship? But a digression from a digression digressing on a digression, there I go again, since I managed to babble around the other point in that this could have been a Neelix-free episode for all the folk who hate his character...

But "EMANATIONS" is the winner of this round!

 

[Oddish]

While, to us, the outfits are cheesy and/or reminiscent of a certain song, one major tenet (IMHO, YMMV, ETC) of sci-fi is to show and explore other cultures on other planets. Dress everyone up in the same off-the-shelf clothing like what's at the store right now, and questions arise: (a) how badly will it date itself after or even during airing, (b) it's not very creative now is it, and (c) why make sci-fi - a genre that encourages some creativity and to sell and bring the audience into this new world rather than being directly spoonfed ours? Acting above the costume is essential.

Hence, my saying I liked them.
The only VOY costume I can say I actively disliked was Seven's skintight catsuits.

 

[Qonundrum]

Hence, my saying I liked them.
The only VOY costume I can say I actively disliked was Seven's skintight catsuits.

My apologies, I tend to write like a first-year college student who didn't get sloshed over the weekend. Eh, well generally anyway... which is amazing since I don't drink, but before I digress any farther at full impulse power...

At least the writers put in a reason for Seven involving the damage to her skin due to the Borg implant treknobabble. Still, it's a bit of a thin reason - glorified bandages that look like something out of a duct tape manufacturing plant. Jeri Ryan definitely acted above and around the outfit and for decades I never knew of the animosity between Kate Mulgrew and her, which is a testament to both of them being utterly professional on screen. The Janeway/Seven double-act is one of the franchise's very strongest...

 

[Brennyren]

Yeah... but B'Elanna getting promoted for assaulting a superior didn't sit right with me, and never will.

She didn't get promoted because she assaulted a superior -- she got promoted because she was the better engineer. Though she should have been more heavily penalized for punching Carey, for sure.