Current Events > Star Trek Voyager watchthrough topic *spoilers for series*

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Inspired by Duran's TNG series of topics, and obviously to steal a little of his thunder, I'll do one for everyone's favorite "Eh, at least it's not Enterprise" of the Star Trek franchise, Voyager. I've watched the hell out of TNG and DS9, but it's been a long-ass time since I've seen VOY, so it's basically going to be like a first-time watchthrough.

So, without further ado, we begin with S1E1: "Caretaker"

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An opening crawl followed by a larger ship pursuing and firing at a smaller ship. I feel like I've seen this somewhere before...

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Also, here's my kitty watching it with me

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Good to see we're still doing those two-handed swings in combat

Okay, Janeway is commiserating over Kim, but what about the, what, half of her command crew that died when the ship hit the beam? Nobody has said anything about them at all.

This doctor gotta work on his bedside manner a little bit. "Well I dunno what you have, but you're probably gonna die"
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UnholyMudcrab posted...

Paris looks familiar. He played someone on a TNG episode, didn't he?

Nick Locarno

Paris was originally supposed to be the same chararacter, but the combination of Locarno being an irredeemable shit and the need to pay rights to his creator meant that they changed him to a different character with a near identical backstory and the same actor.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

Paris looks familiar. He played someone on a TNG episode, didn't he?

In the episode where Wesley is in trouble because his academy squad did a dumb trick that ended up getting someone killed, the head of the squadron that kept pushing to keep quiet about it is played by the same guy.

There's a rumor that they wanted to use the same character, but that would mean paying royalties to the writer of The First Duty for every single episode he'd be in.

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Thaaaat's who it was
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So the Caretaker has been trying to breed. It sounds a lot like he raped the crew and I feel like that kinda got glossed over there.

That was a nice little scene between Janeway and Tuvok after the Caretaker's death, though

I gotta say, I could listen to Jennifer Lien read a phone book.

Also, that thing Voyager does with its nacelles right before it goes to warp is pretty sweet
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Yeah, get used to thinking that the writing isn't very well thought-out.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

I feel like that kinda got glossed over there.

Welcome to 90% of Voyager's episodes.

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That's a wrap on Caretaker. Overall thoughts:

- That was a pretty nice pilot. A good introduction to the characters and the overall situation. I'd probably put it ahead of "Encounter at Farpoint" but behind "Emissary."

- Crew thoughts:
Janeway seems like a strong captain. You can always tell she's in charge.
I especially like Tuvok so far. He's got that dry Vulcan humor about him.
Hopefully Paris gets a little less sleazy in the future.
The Doctor is great. Robert Picardo does exasperated sarcasm really well.
The "Starfleet" and "Maquis" namecalling between Kim and Torres is pretty cute

- I don't like how they're handling Chakotay's native heritage, with the stuff about turning into a bird and his life belonging to Paris. I understand that Robert Beltran had a real problem with the portrayal of his character, and if the series continues like this, I can completely understand why.

- Similarly, it's also a big problem to me how the deaths of everyone at the beginning were glossed over. My first thought was that it would be like Riker, Crusher, Wesley, and La Forge all dying in an episode of TNG and the episode just continuing like normal, but it's probably not quite that severe since the Voyager crew was still pretty new and unfamiliar with each other. Still, half the senior staff died and they're just forgotten about. Where are the bodies?

-Also, the Kazon just didn't seem like all that much of a threat. They spent the entire end of the episode firing on Voyager, and it didn't sound like the ship was ever really in any danger of having its shields broken. Maybe that'll change in the future.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

- I don't like how they're handling Chakotay's native heritage, with the stuff about turning into a bird and his life belonging to Paris. I understand that Robert Beltran had a real problem with the portrayal of his character, and if the series continues like this, I can completely understand why.

They brought in a Native American expert named Jamake Highwater to help develop Chakotay and to make sure his culture was accurate. Jamake Highwater's real name was Jackie Marks and he'd been exposed as a fraud in the early 80s.


UnholyMudcrab posted...

-Also, the Kazon just didn't seem like all that much of a threat. They spent the entire end of the episode firing on Voyager, and it didn't sound like the ship was ever really in any danger of having its shields broken. Maybe that'll change in the future.

The Kazon are a massive threat to this top-of-the-line Starfleet warship, but water is a precious resource to them. Makes total sense, I don't see what the problem is.

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Yeah, Chakotay is... questionable in terms of the native stuff. Apparently the show hired an "advisor" for that side of things who was a complete fraud.

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pegusus123456 posted...

The Kazon are a massive threat to this top-of-the-line Starfleet warship, but water is a precious resource to them. Makes total sense, I don't see what the problem is.

Well, I guess they weren't necessarily supposed to be a threat to Voyager, just to the Ocampa. I suppose I can understand that, although the stuff about the water is kinda weird.
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UnholyMudcrab posted...

Paris looks familiar. He played someone on a TNG episode, didn't he?

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Paris looks familiar. He played someone on a TNG episode, didn't he?

It's the same character but they changed the name to avoid paying rights to the scriptwriter

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I think Voyager is consistent in it's mediocrity. I don't think it hit real low points like other series.

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LookANinja posted...

I think Voyager is consistent in it's mediocrity. I don't think it hit real low points like other series.

I think this is mostly true barring one or two truly awful episodes.

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I can't wait to get to Threshold
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UnholyMudcrab posted...

I can't wait to get to Threshold

Its honestly not nearly as bad as people make out

Like Spocks Brain it's more the premise that is absurd, lots of episodes are way worse

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Yeah, it's probably because I knew the episode's reputation and remembered the outline of the plot from SFDebris, but I didn't find Threshold to be atrociously bad.

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You guys just killin my hype over here
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Don't get me wrong, it's still really bad.

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pegusus123456 posted...

Don't get me wrong, it's still really bad.

in concept

its mediocre in execution

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Worst episode for me is the dream clown

Rhylos posted...

Worst episode for me is the dream clown

lol

Yeah that's pretty bad

Most of the 7 heavy eps are bad too

She even fights The Rock at one point for literally no reason

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Threshold was bad, Tuvix was a war crime.

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Rhylos posted...

Worst episode for me is the dream clown

008Zulu posted...

Tuvix was a war crime.

I actually like both of these episodes lol.

The first one is one of the best of Voyager IMO.

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Tuvix is a good episode l, its just what they do in it

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Alright, time to settle in for S1E2: "Parallax"

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- The Doctor continues to be great

- I like that there are tensions between the Starfleet and Maquis crewmembers. Realistically, you can't just merge them together like that and expect there to be no consequences.

- This is really minor, but did Torres call Chakotay "Chucklotay" there because he was joking around, or did Roxann Dawson have a slip of the tongue that they left in? I can't quite tell.

- Now, I'm no astrophysicist, but I'm pretty sure that's not what an event horizon is, Neelix

- A nice little scene between Janeway and Chakotay. Caught between hierarchy and ability.

- They're heading for that other system at impulse speed, but Neelix said it was 3 LY away. They'll, uh, be at this for a while, I think.

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I came in here to pay my respects to Tuvix.

- I guess they won't be at it for a while after all, since the singularity is being a bit clingy

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Eh. I like Voyager. Yes, TNG had way higher highs. But it also had much lower lows.

The Doctor and Seven of Nine are great characters though. Even if they did get more screentime at the expense of everyone else.
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every Chakotay episode is terrible, The Doctos is the best and the show has some really good episodes starting season 4 and Kes leaves

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Episode thoughts:

- That was a really nice one. I liked the character development, the Doctor provided some good comic relief, and all the scenes between Janeway, Chakotay, and Torres were great.

- I like that Janeway is a science nerd. It was cute watching her and Torres finish each other's sentences

- The weird science with singularities and event horizons is a bit of a knock against it, but what's Star Trek without weird science?

- Gotta say, I do feel a bit sorry for the Doctor. Nobody takes him all that seriously, and the scene between him and Kes where she treated him like a person was really good.

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The doctor is great and Seven of Nine is hot. That's really all there is to say

UnholyMudcrab posted...

I gotta say, I could listen to Jennifer Lien read a phone book.

I dunno if you'd want that now!

https://variety.com/2015/tv/news/jennifer-lien-arrested-star-trek-voyager-1201594328/
https://www.wate.com/news/local-news/former-star-trek-voyager-actress-arrested-in-kingston/

Harriman is a small ass town (like 6000 people) and it weirds me out that she's descended into insanity there as a large chunk of my extended family lives there. Like, I lived there briefly in 2015 when she got arrested for indecent exposure literally right down the road.

Oh.
Well then.

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Endgame posted...

Seven of Nine
great characters

ok...


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Time for S1E3: "Time and Again"

We're certainly not wasting any time before getting to time travel episodes.

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- Dammit, Paris is being sleazy again. I told you not to do this, man.

- This area they're beaming down to really reminds me of the Pripyat levels in CoD4. "50 billion people used to live on this planet. Now it's a ghost town."

- "Your brain will make a fine addition to my collection."

- Oh no, it's one of those "Let an entire civilization die by slavishly adhering to the Prime Directive" episodes.

- Well, that's a bit different. You normally wouldn't expect a captain to just let the Prime Directive cat out of the bag like that.

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Post-episode thoughts (that I'm having to write twice because I accidentally exited out of the page the first time):

- The ending made my brain hurt a little. Janeway stops the Voyager's rescue attempt, which causes the disaster not to happen, so everyone is just back where they were, and the time loop is stabilized? Except Kes, because she has psychic powers and I guess can see into other timelines? I've never been very good at deciphering time travel storylines.

- Speaking of which, I liked the twist that Voyager's rescue attempt was the actual cause of the explosion

- Also speaking of which, I was not so big on the neat little wrapup the episode got in the end. Nobody remembers anything except Kes (and even Kes only vaguely), and nobody learns anything. I guess the silver lining is that slavish obedience to the Prime Directive didn't nearly wipe out an entire civilization this time. I'm pretty firmly on Paris's side of that argument.

- A minor quibble, but this episode seemed a little bit too similar to last episode, with the "effect before cause" stuff. They might be leaning a little too heavily on time travel so far.

- Overall, this was another decent one, though the ending kinda fell flat. We're not off to a bad start so far, which isn't really what I was expecting from a Star Trek series.

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i actually really like that one. probably my second favorite 90s trek S1 episode. behind Duet, and fighting with The Andorian Incident and Conspiracy for a distant second.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

- Also speaking of which, I was not so big on the neat little wrapup the episode got in the end.

Get used to the taste of that sadly.

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Medussa posted...

i actually really like that one. probably my second favorite 90s trek S1 episode. behind Duet, and fighting with The Andorian Incident and Conspiracy for a distant second.

Duet is such a good episode.

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Now beginning S1E4: "Phage"

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Hope you enjoy the Kazon lol

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- Neelix gon' burn the damn ship down

- I imagine Janeway is desperately hoping he doesn't come back from this

- His... lungs? Oh Neelix, you colossal dumbass

- Welp, the holo-lungs are definitely not gonna be an option

- Oh no, now they're trying to steal organs from the ship itself

- I like this idea of using the phasers as a flashlight. That's neat.

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Came here for Tuvix. Also, I love Janeway.

Janeway: *BANG BANG* "Freeze!"

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- Oh man, the makeup effects on these guys. They are repulsive to look at.

- This warning by Janeway toward the Vidians seems kinda toothless. Neither side has any idea what capabilities the other has.

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