I agree on that. I think that most of the characters turned to the worse in the later seasons. Either they were shoved in the background or lost what made them good characters in the early seasons.
Yep, same here. It's a shame though that some of the characters are relegated to the background. The Doctor, Seven and Janeway are my favourite characters, and Tuvok, B'Elanna and Tom have their moments, but the rest don't fare so well. Neelix and Harry were lost causes anyway, but I feel bad for Chakotay, because he had some great moments mostly when paired with Janeway in episodes like 'Scorpion' and 'Year Of Hell'. From season 5 onwards he's mostly used as filler between important scenes.
Yes, her character was really done a disservice when Voyager became the Seven and Doctor show. She still had some great moments though.
Last I heard, most people preferred the middle and later years to the first three. I did a reassessment and started to appreciate the early ones more, but my tapes leave out the ones that didn't interest me, so it's skewed. Most of season two isn't there. I didn't understand the bits of mythology, or philosophy, or something, that they were putting into Voyager early on. It's as if the show had a theme or philosophy that I didn't get. Part of it was the embracing of American Indian religion as "real", which seemed problematic. The one where Janeway had to go through some rituals on a planet to find out where crewmen were, or something... I sensed some philosophical bent being presented there, but it wasn't clear what the idea or message was.
The first and second seasons were the most original of the entire series. From season 3 onwards, Voyager began to copy storylines from the TNG; such as Coda; the story was a amalgamation of "Cause and Effect" and "The Next Phase". It's never a good sign when a series starts to rip-off another. After season 5, Voyager became repetitive. In my opinion, Voyager should never have used the Borg has a recurring foe. The Borg, thanks to Voyager, don't seem to be as formidable has they once were in the Next Generation. And I don't think an Intrepid class starship could take on a Borg cube by itself and win!
I agree. When they moved away from unique story arc into "Next Gen Lite" plus borg they became just another Trek series. I still found it entertaining but something was lost along the way.
I found many episodes of S1-3 to be already hugely derivative of The Next Generation, long before Seven of Nine arrived, although to be fair watching through the early seasons again a couple of years ago I pick on more subtleties and story arcs that I overlooked the first time around. I agree that Seasons Six and Seven were definitely weaker than Seasons Four and Five overall, but not really inferior to much of the content of the equally inconsistant S1-2-3 period (although it was like a different show and becoming a parody in some ways, but that's hardly unique).
If I've read this thread right (and I admit I skipped the last few pages), Seasons 1-7 are the most popular while Seasons 1-7 are the most hated. IDIC in action?