Star Trek: Voyager, is the very least of the Star Trek series in my opinion. The series had such potential! It has a wonderful cast & production team... It had a great back story (revealed in episodes of The Next Generation & DS9), but the writers of the series have constantly undermined the series; giving the cast little or nothing to work with, & giving little character development, save for later cast member "7of9" (wonderfully played by Jerry Ryan) & the holographic Doctor.
The show lacks continuity & makes HUGE unforgivable mistakes in it's major plotlines. On the up-side, the show LOOKS WONDERFUL ;-) In fact, the show is very impressive, when you watch it with the volume turned all the way down! The special effects & direction are more often then not, superb! Witness the final episode in which special effects & direction attempt to cover the lame send off & the fact that Captain Janeway is the most selfish irresponsible bitch to have somehow "earned" a starfleet uniform!
This isn't to say that there aren't many episodes that are well worth viewing; I enjoyed the 1st & 4th Seasons immensely, but the other 5 seasons are such a mixed bag (quality wise) that the series is often painful to watch; at least the show is over & ended without causing any damage to the Alpha Quadrant universe in which DS9 flourished.
Some things about the series that I find annoying are: Tom Paris. Tom Paris has the same back story & is played by the same actor as the character of Nic Lacarno, from the excellent Next Generation 5th season episode "The First Duty", & yet the character has a new name...why??? No one seems to know...the writers of Voyager are just beyond absent minded.
The recurring Vulcan character, Vorick, is played by the same actor who portrayed a Vulcan character with the same makeup & speech patterns as Vorick, only his name was Torick & he appeared in the Next Generation episode: "Lower Decks". Why not just have them be the same characters??? I don't understand!!!?!!?!?!?!
I don't think I can express how much the writers of Voyager have destroyed my love of Star Trek. One instance comes to mind, in which they attempted a 30th Anniversary of Star Trek, special episode that was centered around the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which I thought was a wonderful idea, & that they were doing a wonderful job exposing us to this adventure of Sulu's & Tuvok's that we hadn't seen in the film... Except that the episode chose to center around the death of a character (Dimitrie Valtain) who was seen very much alive at the end of the film!?! How could they write this story, based on the film, & not watch the film??? It hurts my head, just to think about it!
In 5th Season's "two hour telemovie: Dark Frontier" the Borg Queen attempts to return 7 of 9 to the collective. The production values of this episode are amazing & it just looks so beautiful & dark. The performances are as impressive as any other Trek... But plot holes are so large & the lack of continuity so disturbing that it is nothing more than a beautiful failure (an apt description for Voyager if ever there was one). For instance, the back story of 7's parents, in which they encounter the Borg, completely contradicts the original Borg storylines on The Next Generation. Also, the Borg Queen, who should embody the entire collective, is just an individual character here.... And she lies!?! We've heard again & again that The Borg can't lie - which is something that has always made them that more threatening - Voyager's version just seem like petty cry babies... And the climactic sequence where Janeway, touting a heavy phaser rifle, comes crashing into the Queen's lair to get her surrogate daughter 7, is so much like the ending of James Cameron's "Aliens" that I cringed.
Anyways - this is why I don't like the series as a whole, though there are some very good episodes as well ("Caretaker, Parts I & II", "Scorpion, Parts I & II", "Remember", "Living Witness", "Death Wish", "The Omega Directive" all spring to mind)....
Here is a list of all of Voyager's televised adventures, listed in chronological order. I have color coded them as follows:
Fuchsia = A Great Trek
Green = A Good Trek
Yellow = A Mediocre Trek
Blue = A Trek Going Nowhere
& Red = A Trek Into HELL
STAR TREK: VOYAGER
001 CARETAKER, PART I
002 CARETAKER, PART II
003 PARALLAX
004 TIME & AGAIN
005 PHAGE
006 THE CLOUD
007 EYE OF THE NEEDLE
008 EX-POST-FACTO
009 EMANATIONS
010 PRIME FACTORS
011 STATE OF FLUX
012 HEROES & DEMONS
013 CATHEXIS
014 FACES
015 JETREL
016 LEARNING CURVE
017 THE 37'S
018 INITIATIONS
019 PROJECTIONS
020 ELOGIUM
021 NON SEQUITUR
022 TWISTED
023 PARTURITION
024 PERSISTENCE OF VISION
025 TATTOO
026 COLD FIRE
027 MANEUVERS
028 RESISTANCE
029 PROTOTYPE
030 ALLIANCES
031 THRESHOLD
032 MELD
033 DREADNOUGHT
034 DEATH WISH
035 LIFESIGNS
036 INVESTIGATIONS
037 DEADLOCK
038 INNOCENCE
039 THE THAW
040 TUVIX
041 RESOLUTIONS
042 BASICS, PART I
043 BASICS, PART II
044 FLASHBACK
045 THE CHUTE
046 THE SWARM
047 FALSE PROPHETS
048 REMEMBER
049 SACRED GROUND
050 FUTURE'S END, PART I
051 FUTURE'S END, PART II
052 WARLORD
053 THE Q & THE GREY
054 MACROCOSM
055 FAIR TRADE
056 ALTER EGO
057 CODA
058 BLOOD FEVER
059 UNITY
060 DARKLING
061 RISE
062 FAVORITE SON
063 BEFORE & AFTER
064 REAL LIFE
065 DISTANT ORIGIN
066 DISPLACED
067 WORST CASE SCENARIO
068 SCORPION, PART I
069 SCORPION, PART II
070 THE GIFT
071 DAY OF HONOR
072 NEMESIS
073 REPULSION
074 THE RAVEN
075 SCIENTIFIC METHOD
076 THE YEAR OF HELL, PART I
077 THE YEAR OF HELL, PART II
078 RANDOM THOUGHTS
079 CONCERNING FLIGHT
080 MORTAL COIL
081 WAKING MOMENTS
082 MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
083 HUNTERS
084 PREY
085 RETROSPECT
086 THE KILLING GAME, PART I
087 THE KILLING GAME, PART II
088 VIS A VIS
089 THE OMEGA DIRECTIVE
090 UNFORGETTABLE
091 LIVING WITNESS
092 DEMON
093 ONE
094 HOPE & FEAR
095 NIGHT
096 DRONE
097 EXTREME RISK
098 IN THE FLESH
099 ONCE UPON A TIME
100 TIMELESS
101 INFINATE REGRESS
102 NOTHING HUMAN
103 THIRTY DAYS
104 COUNTERPOINT
105 LATENT IMAGE
106 THE BRIDE OF CHAOTICA
107 GRAVITY
108 BLISS
109 DARK FRONTIER, PART I
110 DARK FRONTIER, PART II
111 THE DISEASE
112 COURSE: OBLIVION
113 THE FIGHT
114 THINK TANK
115 JUGGERNAUT
116 SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME
117 11:59
118 RELATIVITY
119 WARHEAD
120 EQUINOX, PART I
121 EQUINOX, PART II
122 SURVIVAL INSTINCT
123 BARGE OF THE DEAD
124 TINKER, TENOR, DOCTOR, SPY
125 ALICE
126 RIDDLES
127 DRAGON'S TEETH
128 ONE SMALL STEP
129 THE VOYAGER CONSPIRACY
130 PATHFINDER
131 FAIR HAVEN
132 BLINK OF AN EYE
133 VIRTUOSO
134 MEMORIAL
135 TSUNKATSE
136 COLLECTIVE
137 SPIRIT FOLK
138 ASHES TO ASHES
139 CHILD'S PLAY
140 GOOD SHEPHERD
141 LIVE FAST & PROSPER
142 MUSE
143 FURY
144 LIFE LINE
145 THE HAUNTING OF DECK 12
146 UNIMATRIX ZERO, PART I
147 UNIMATRIX ZERO, PART II
148 IMPERFECTION
149 DRIVE
150 REPRESSION
151 CRITICAL CARE
152 INSIDE MAN
153 BODY & SOUL
154 NIGHTENGALE
155 FLESH & BLOOD, PART I
156 FLESH & BLOOD, PART II
157 SHATTERED
158 LINEAGE
159 REPENTANCE
160 THE PROHECY
161 THE VOID
162 WORKFORCE, PART I
163 WORKFORCE, PART II
164 HUMAN ERROR
165 Q2
166 AUTHOR, AUTHOR
167 FRIENDSHIP ONE
168 NATURAL LAW
169 HOMESTEAD
170 RENAISSANCE MAN
171 ENDGAME, PART I
172 ENDGAME, PART II
