"Star Trek: Voyager"

1995-2001
The fourth TREK series, and a fine addition to the universe. That it didn't achieve the excitement engendered by the classic and NEXT GEN is hardly reason to ignore it. It created many moments worthy of its heritage, and was a return to TREK sanity after the miss & hit DS9. I was a bit ambivalent over the first few seasons...yet like DS9, it received a jolting season 4 overhaul. Is someone trying to tell us that the fourth season of classic TREK would have been better than the first three? VOYAGER offered a high level of writing, occasionally worthy of science fiction at its best.
SERIES EPISODE AVERAGE: 2.9
BY SEASON:
1) 2.6
2) 2.7
3) 2.9
4) 3.1
5) 3.0
6) 2.9
7) 2.9
FOUR-STAR EPISODES (season)
-Eye of the Needle (1)
-Projections (2)
-Death Wish (2)
-Future's End (3)
-Distant Origin (3)
-Scorpion (3-4)
-Year of Hell (4)
-Message in a Bottle (4)
-Prey (4)
-In the Flesh (5)
-Someone to Watch Over Me (5)
-Equinox, pt. 1 (5)
-Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy (6)
-Blink of an Eye (6)
-Body and Soul (7)
-Shattered (7)
-Endgame (7)
PERFORMANCES (# of episodes)
-kate mulgrew (kathryn janeway, 170) ***
Plus NEMESIS. Forever in the world's mind, there will be a female STAR TREK captain. You had an impossible job, kate...the search for a balance that would please everyone (trekkies, feminists, casual fans...). You succeeded. Naysayers, begone.
JANEWAYTHON
-Resistance
-Counterpoint
-Good Shepherd
-Resolutions
-tim russ (tuvok, 170) ****
Plus GENERATIONS, "Starship Mine" TNG, and 2 DEEP SPACE NINEs. After nimoy, mark lenard, and robin curtis, the only vulcan who got it right. Whenever they gave him a chance to shine, he lifted everyone and everything. The brilliant mr. russ. He also directed "Living Witness".
TUVOKATHON
-Alter Ego
-Meld
-Riddles
-Gravity
-the farewell scene from "Homestead"
-robert beltran (chakotay, 170) ***
Just to remind you that DS9 wasn't a bad dream, they put a spiritual monkey on the first officer's back. It says much about robert's talent and affability that he bore the weight.
CHAKOTAYTHON
-Unity
-Distant Origin
-Nemesis
-Natural Law
-robert duncan mcneill (tom paris, 170) **
Admit it, tom was never as compelling as nick locarno in TNG's "The First Duty". Was it simply that the producers didn't suck it up and pay the writer to continue using that character? Might that tiny thread of chemistry have made the difference? We wanted to like tom, we did. But they got away from his "bad boy" side too quickly. He should have bedded kes, he should have...well, you could make a list, but instead we got another Starfleet goodie-goodie, saddled with a flaccid romance that ate his character. Robert directed four episodes, and four ENTERPRISEs.
MCNEILLATHON
-The First Duty TNG
-Ex Post Facto
-Drive
-Thirty Days
-roxann dawson (b'elanna torres, 168) **
Plus "Dead Stop" ENT. Another low rating not the actor's fault. It would have been more interesting to push the boundaries of her tempestuousness, and oh, that groaning clunker of a romance...mightn't it have been more compelling to explore b'elanna and chakotay romantically? Or even harry? Ah well. In season 4, a new character came in to be the sex symbol that torres could have been. Not that every show ought have a sex symbol - let's not pander. But at a certain point with a character long on potential and short on movement, you have to say, "DO something, wouldya?" Not roxann's fault...she can only read the lines she's given. She also directed two episodes, and ten ENTERPRISEs.
B'ELLANATHON
-Faces
-Juggernaut
-the chakotay love scene from "Persistence of Vision"
-Extreme Risk
-Day of Honor
-garrett wang (harry kim, 168) **
It's tempting to give him a third star for not being overtly annoying. He may not have been the most talented trekker to tweak a tricorder, but like terry farrell, the writers knew how to make him look good (or good enough).
HARRYTHON
-Non Sequitur
-Favorite Son
-Ashes to Ashes
-The Disease
-robert picardo (the doctor, 167) ****
Plus FIRST CONTACT, and "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" DS9. If you're not comfortable with gushing, skip to the next character. A role that robert initially wanted no part of, he went on to become the character most responsible for the success of the show. Episodes that DON'T make the cut in this marathon are better than ones that did for other characters. Of the forty-eight characters in the TREK universe who rate their own marathon, the doctor is the only one whose episodes that were diverted to other marathons, might make a better marathon than the ones here. An embarrassment of riches. He also directed two episodes, and co-wrote "Life Line".
DOCATHON
-the doctor scene from FIRST CONTACT
-The Swarm
-Projections
-Tinker Tailor Doctor Spy
-Virtuoso
-Someone to Watch Over Me
-Renaissance Man
-the party scene from "Endgame"
-ethan philips (neelix, 164) *
Plus FIRST CONTACT, "Menage a Troi" TNG, and "Acquisition" ENT. A lovely performance...in a disaster of a character. Can anyone put their finger on what was so wrong? Not making him perversely jealous over kes might have helped. A more evolved (non-20th century human) attitude, one encouraging of her having an affair with tom or the doc...then you might have had something, oh keepers of the flame. But really, he should have been written off in the season 3 house-cleaning. Or very much sooner, UNLESS they were willing to dive deep into the fact that even after seven years, everyone still pretty much kept him at arm's length (Starfleet protestations to the contrary). But they didn't...and creating an intentionally annoying character is perhaps the greatest challenge in script writing. You have to make annoyingness appealing (at least on some subconscious level), but neelix makes urkel look like frank burns. Someone on the staff had a gallows sense of humor, at least. For your cathartic mental health, i offer the...
DEAD-NEELIX-A-THON
-the dying scene from "The Phage"
-the death scene from "Meld"
-the death scene from "Macrocosm"
-Mortal Coil
-jeri ryan (seven of nine, 102) ****
Franchise revitalized? Check. A fascinating character, and jeri's looks prevent her from receiving proper appreciation. The show didn't (or perhaps couldn't) do full justice to how smart seven would actually be, as a former drone. Realistically, that's but one reason she never would have even been able to reassimilate into humanity...but we'll call that a necessary conceit. Seven oh seven, we love thee true.
SEVENATHON
-Dark Frontier
-Body and Soul
-Human Error
-Relativity
-jennifer lien (kes, 68) **
We liked her. No, really. A romance with the doctor (or tom) might have popped. But that neelix thing...great googily, it was so awful we could never put it out of our minds when she appeared. That's not just about chemistry...the writers dropped the ball in never giving us a scene that showed us why she loved him. They never gave us that "ah, i get it" moment. And then they axed the wrong character.
KESATHON
-Lifesigns
-Warlord
-Before and After
-Fury
-scarlett pomers (naomi wildman, 17) ***
Should have been annoying. But kinda nice.
-martha hackett (seska, 13) **
Plus "The Search" DS9. Eh.
-manu intiraymi (icheb, 11) ****
Makes you wish the show had gone another season or two.
ICHEBTHON
-Collective
-Child's Play
-Imperfection
-Shattered
-alexander enberg (vorik, 8) **
Plus "Juggernaut", and 2 NEXT GENs. Okay, in all fairness, he often invokes nimoy's presence more pitch perfectly than perhaps any other actor. Is the low rating because it's mimicry without depth? Perhaps he did as much as he could given limited screen time and occasionally subpar writing.
-nancy hower (samantha wildman, 8) ***
How did her snot-nosed offspring wrangle more episodes? A romance with harry or neelix would have been interesting.
-josh clark (joe carey, 7) ***
Plus "Justice" TNG. That perfect kyle/o'brien small-dose presence.
-dwight schulz (barclay, 6) ****
Plus FIRST CONTACT, and 5 NEXT GENs. Somebody give this character a series! See http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2011/09/st-next-generation.html.
-marley mcclean (mezoti, 5) ****
I suppose it made narrative sense to write off our little decollectivized borgling, and perhaps with naomi around there was only room for one ten year-old...but 'tis a shame. She nailed her character with humor and humanity.
-richard herd (admiral paris, 4) ***
Plus "Birthright" NEXT GEN...not to mention starring or recurring roles on V, T.J. HOOKER, SEAQUEST, and SEINFELD. Invite this man to dinner.
-john de lancie (q, 3) ****
Plus 8 NEXT GENs, and "Q-Less" DS9. See http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2011/09/st-next-generation.html.
-suzanna thompson (borg queen, 2) ***
Plus 2 NEXT GENs, and "Rejoined" DS9. With the deck stacked against her, she achieved the impossible - making us forget she's not alice krige.
-brad dourif (lon suder, 2) ***
Sci fi luminary dourif gave disturbing (and poignant) reality to a betazed serial killer.
SUDERTHON
-Meld
-Basics
8472-A-THON
-Scorpion
-Prey
-In the Flesh
HOLOLIFE-A-THON
-Elementary, Dear Data TNG
-Revulsion
-Message in a Bottle
-Flesh and Blood
-Life Line
LEFTOVERTHON
-Displaced
-Alliances
-Night
-One Small Step
VOYAGERTHON
-Death Wish
-Projections
-Someone to Watch Over Me
-Scorpion