Voyager's contribution to all time great Trek episodes

[T.D. Possum]

I mostly agree with what has already been said for the best episodes though my favourite episodes are not always the best ones. I enjoyed Dark Frontier and Macrocosm for action Janeway, not the best episodes but Janeway was just so cool in them. Body and Soul was probably my favourite funny episode.

I agree with all that.

The ones I'd vote for, though, to stand up against the best of TNG and DS9 would be:

Equinox
Scorpion
Tuvix (despite the stupid aspects of how the merging took place)

In that order.

And possibly Year of Hell. Not a deep idea show, but a good character study for the captain. IMHO, as good as The Inner Light, only in a different way. But nowhere near as good as In The Pale Moonlight.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Latent Image and Equinox are the ones that stand out the most for me.

 

[exodus]

Yeah, I figured I was in the tiny minority on Nothing Human. :x

I actually really like that one. It's not perfectly executed, but the exploration of the very real issue of immoral medical research was well explored and very thought provoking. I'd actually completely forgotten about this, but recalling it now I remember being very touched.

I agree.
Plus, I know of several other Trek boards were the issues within the ep. are seriously discussed.
Due to them, I myself came to appreciate the ep. way more than I first did.

I'm going to add
"Real Life"
"Dark Frontier"
"Counterpoint"
"Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy"

 

[T.D. Possum]

^ I thought about naming "Real Life", too, but since I've never been able to bring myself to watch the last few scenes . . . .

Well, I guess that's a mark of how well that ep did, huh?

 

[tomalak301]

Living Witness I would put up with the best of Trek. Other episodes I would put in that group:

Timeless
Memorial
Blink of an Eye
Resistance

 

[froot]

Yeah, I figured I was in the tiny minority on Nothing Human. :x

I actually really like that one. It's not perfectly executed, but the exploration of the very real issue of immoral medical research was well explored and very thought provoking. I'd actually completely forgotten about this, but recalling it now I remember being very touched.

I could go on about all the things that are wrong with this episode, as I've already done a few times on various threads - from the many plotholes and illogical behavior by everyone, the inconsistency regarding the nature and sentience of holograms (one of the major themes of the show in general), to the casual racism towards Cardassians by a couple of regulars that is presented as being justified (something I don't remember a Trek show ever doing at any other time), to the hypocrisy and the one-sided arguments and a lack of mention of unethical medical experiments on humans throughout real life human history (all they could come up with was the Moset hologram mentioning humans conducting experiments on lower animals)...but I don't want to derail the thread.

It's one of those episodes that aim to be important and deep and thought-provoking and deal with a serious issue, but end up doing it in all the wrong ways and being incredibly shallow and hypocritical, not to mention full of illogical moments, out of character behavior and inconsistencies that come from manipulating the viewer and skewing the story in order to spoon-feed 'the message' to the viewer. If you actually start thinking about the events in the episode, it all falls like a house of cards. I remember starting to watch it expecting it to be great, and getting more and more bothered and pissed off with every scene.

Even as a fan of this episode, I do have to add that the whole premise falls flat on its face when you consider that VOY made extensive use of Borg tech, and the Borg weren't exactly nice folks.

Oh, man. I still remember watching Real Life the first night it came on and I was just sobbing at the final few scenes. I think I've watched it maybe once or twice since; it's so sad!

 

[Admiral Shran]

Yeah, I figured I was in the tiny minority on Nothing Human. :x

I actually really like that one. It's not perfectly executed, but the exploration of the very real issue of immoral medical research was well explored and very thought provoking. I'd actually completely forgotten about this, but recalling it now I remember being very touched.

I could go on about all the things that are wrong with this episode, as I've already done a few times on various threads - from the many plotholes and illogical behavior by everyone, the inconsistency regarding the nature and sentience of holograms (one of the major themes of the show in general), to the casual racism towards Cardassians by a couple of regulars that is presented as being justified (something I don't remember a Trek show ever doing at any other time), to the hypocrisy and the one-sided arguments and a lack of mention of unethical medical experiments on humans throughout real life human history (all they could come up with was the Moset hologram mentioning humans conducting experiments on lower animals)...but I don't want to derail the thread.

It's one of those episodes that aim to be important and deep and thought-provoking and deal with a serious issue, but end up doing it in all the wrong ways and being incredibly shallow and hypocritical, not to mention full of illogical moments, out of character behavior and inconsistencies that come from manipulating the viewer and skewing the story in order to spoon-feed 'the message' to the viewer. If you actually start thinking about the events in the episode, it all falls like a house of cards. I remember starting to watch it expecting it to be great, and getting more and more bothered and pissed off with every scene.

I feel pretty much the same way. I remember when I first saw the episode, I kind of liked it up until Torres said this....

"Hologram or not, he's Cardassian. As far as I'm concerned, they're all cold-blooded killers"

At that point I literally facepalmed and thought "ARE YOU F#@KING KIDDING ME?!"

 

[exodus]

I actually really like that one. It's not perfectly executed, but the exploration of the very real issue of immoral medical research was well explored and very thought provoking. I'd actually completely forgotten about this, but recalling it now I remember being very touched.

I could go on about all the things that are wrong with this episode, as I've already done a few times on various threads - from the many plotholes and illogical behavior by everyone, the inconsistency regarding the nature and sentience of holograms (one of the major themes of the show in general), to the casual racism towards Cardassians by a couple of regulars that is presented as being justified (something I don't remember a Trek show ever doing at any other time), to the hypocrisy and the one-sided arguments and a lack of mention of unethical medical experiments on humans throughout real life human history (all they could come up with was the Moset hologram mentioning humans conducting experiments on lower animals)...but I don't want to derail the thread.

It's one of those episodes that aim to be important and deep and thought-provoking and deal with a serious issue, but end up doing it in all the wrong ways and being incredibly shallow and hypocritical, not to mention full of illogical moments, out of character behavior and inconsistencies that come from manipulating the viewer and skewing the story in order to spoon-feed 'the message' to the viewer. If you actually start thinking about the events in the episode, it all falls like a house of cards. I remember starting to watch it expecting it to be great, and getting more and more bothered and pissed off with every scene.

Even as a fan of this episode, I do have to add that the whole premise falls flat on its face when you consider that VOY made extensive use of Borg tech, and the Borg weren't exactly nice folks.

The Federation & Bajorians took a slave labor mining facility and turned it into a place of commerce. I think the message is in all 3 examples that something that came from evil can be turned around for good. If Borg tech can be used to save lives, should we turn our back to it because it was also used to enslave people? If that's the case, then all the industrial growth created during slavery shouldn't be used. Many of the things and technology that we take for granted everyday all started out from less than honorable means.

 

[DevilEyes]

^ Which they could have brought up in the episode, but they didn't.

 

[exodus]

^ Which they could have brought up in the episode, but they didn't.

I guess they figured they didn't have too reteach us stuff from history we should already know and how to associate it. They didn't need to so many other times before.

 

[StarryEyed]

Scorpion
Basics
Counterpoint
Timeless
Someone To Watch Over Me
Think Tank
Message In a Bottle
Relativity
Future's End
Unity
Deathwish
Distant Origin
Memorial

 

[exodus]

^^Memorial.

Good one!

 

[StarryEyed]

^^Memorial.

Good one!

Yeah, I always thought it was underrated. It certainly isn't among the more fun to watch but it's emotionally powerful. I loved Neelix passionately arguing against shutting down the synaptic transmitter - "We don't have the right!" Great morality episode.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

I can't make a choice... my personal preferences keep getting confused with what are supposed to be "all time greats".

Perhaps if someone could put up a list of "all time greats" from other shows, I could have a yard stick against to measure my Voy favs.

(Spock's brain had better not be on that list! )

 

[Destructor]

I can't make a choice... my personal preferences keep getting confused with what are supposed to be "all time greats".

Perhaps if someone could put up a list of "all time greats" from other shows, I could have a yard stick against to measure my Voy favs.

I think an 'all-time great' is not just a *really good* episode, but an episode that's considered 'Trekkian', in that it attempts to impart some philosophical truth about the human condition in it's telling.

Some undisputed greats might be:

TOS: City on the Edge of Forever, Mirror Mirror
TNG: The Inner Light, Yesterday's Enterprise
DS9: The Visitor, Far Beyond the Stars
ENT: Twilight, Dear Doctor

 

[Admiral Shran]

^^Memorial.

Good one!

Yeah, I always thought it was underrated. It certainly isn't among the more fun to watch but it's emotionally powerful. I loved Neelix passionately arguing against shutting down the synaptic transmitter - "We don't have the right!" Great morality episode.

That's a pretty good one too. I always thought the scene with Neelix protecting Naomi from his hallucinations was very moving.

 

[DevilEyes]

TOS: City on the Edge of Forever, Mirror Mirror
TNG: The Inner Light, Yesterday's Enterprise
DS9: The Visitor, Far Beyond the Stars
ENT: Twilight, Dear Doctor

Ugh. You consider Dear Doctor a great episode?

It's not even a good episode. It's one of the worst examples of Trek combining bad science with horribly bad ethics.

The other picks are all right, a few episodes I would add to the list of great episodes (don't have time for a full list) include

TOS - Balance of Terror, Amok Time, The Naked Time, The Doomsday Machine, The Tholian Web, This Side of Paradise, (perhaps not a popular choice, but extremely underrated IMO) Is There In Truth No Beauty?
TNG - The Measure of a Man, The Best of Both Worlds, Tapestry, Chain of Command (pt 2), The Defector, Sins of the Father/Reunion, The Wounded, All Good Things
DS9 - Duet, In the Pale Moonlight, Necessary Evil, Call to Arms, Chimera, Treachery, Faith and the Great River, Improbable Cause/The Die Is Cast, Rocks and Shoals, Favor the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels, etc.
ENT - Azati Prime/Damage, The Forge/Awakening/Kir'Shara, Demons/Terra Prime, In A Mirror, Darkly

 

[Deckerd]

I wish the producers had gone for Friends-type episode naming. These titles mean nothing to me but if you say "the one with ..." I'm fine.

 

[Solarbaby]

The fact I can't remember what a lot of the epsiodes are about says to me that there were really only a handful of knock out episodes of Voyager that can stand up to TNG or DS9 or TOS.

Eye of the needle

Tuvix

I would have liked to have said flashback- but it f****d up continuity by killing some of Sulu's bridge crew

Scorpion part1 does- Part2 doesn't because it weakened the Borg.

Year of hell was fantastic. This is the way the series should have gone.

Author Author

Living Witness

Message in a bottle

Future's end

Basics

Distant Origin

Hope and Fear

Drone

Timeless

Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy

Live Fast and prosper

 

[TheKeeper]

Many of my favorites have been cited, so I'll throw in an honorable mention for "Gravity". (For the sake of Deckerd and others, that's "the one with Tuvok and Paris stranded on a planet inside a time-dilated rift, so that months pass for them for every hour elsewhere. Tuvok recalls his own rebellious youth and counseling by a Vulcan sage (Joseph Ruskin), as he copes with a fellow castaway's (Lori Petty) increasing attraction to him.)

To me, this was TOS' "All Our Yesterdays" done right.