When Next Generation went off the air, DS9 became the writers playground and with that show not having the bold exploration part of the show… Voyager decided to go where no man had gone before and with Captain Janeway in the big seat, the ship was lost far from known space and thrown into chaos.

But chaos never actually happened. The show had them cut off from all their creature comforts and resources, yet the crew seemed to have a jolly time out there with very little causing trouble, constant fuel supplies and despite throwing the word ‘rations’ around every now and then, an unlimited source of resources.

All the trauma of being cut off from civilisation, upgrades and everything else was all too often forgotten and any problem faced was always easily fixed. If half the ship fell off, they’d somehow get it fixed by the next episode and as the show went on, every solution involved Borg Nanoprobes in some way like a magic wand being waved to give the writers an easy way out of everything.

The producers forgetting the very basic plot ruined Voyager for me. Instead of being something new and unique, it was another Next Generation with bland characters doing pretty much nothing. The show to me is seven years of wasted potential with one of the worst finale’s I’ve ever seen, I could go on…

…but despite that, it had it’s moments.

In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you appear the words: Here begins a new life.
Latent Image (season 5)
This is noted as being Robert Picardo’s favourite episode of Voyager, and with good reason. In this, his character simply known as ‘The Doctor’ or ‘EMH’ realises that Harry Kim has gone through a complex medical procedure reasonably recently and as he’s the only person on board who could do such a thing – he’s understandably confused.

Seeing as he’s a hologram and his brain is merely a computer database, he should remmeber something like this. And so he begins to learn of a time when his programming began to collapse. He had two patients, both of them unstable in exactly the same condition and hehad to choose which one to operate on. Being a computer, he should have gone about it logically. But in this instance he chose who he was closest to and saved Harry while the other crew member died.

Designed only to be a medical suppliment to be used in an emergency, he’s not programmed to deal with emotional decisions and over theyears we’ve seen him turn from program to person. This decision tipped him over the edge of reason and his programming began to collapse in the form of a breakdown, so Janeway decided to erase his memory.

When he rediscovers what happened, he begins to fall apart again but he fights against having his memory wiped and in the end we have a wonderful closing scene where the crew take turns looking after him as he tried to wrap his head around what happens and come to terms with it, being treated as a person instead of a machine.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
The Thaw (season 2)
This was one of the better episodes of Voyager for me. The setting was simple enough. Ish. The crew stumble upon a planet that went through a disaster and find out that a group had put themselves into some kind of artificial hibernation in order to survive it. The crew soon find out their minds are trapped in an artificial world with an insane clown, played nicely by Michael McKean, keeping them hostage.

By this point engineering types Torress and Kim are already trapped inside and find out that the Clown was created by those inside him and if they leave their hibernation, he’ll die. So he’s doing what he can to keep them in and if he kills you inside his little world, you die in the real world.

The closing scene is wonderful when Janeway offers herself in place of all the people he’s keeping hostage and slowly he realises it’s all a trick. His world fades away piece by piece leaving him alone with a fake Janeway as he cowers in fear at his own impending doom.

How it could have been.
Equinox (season 5-6)
While I think this was a wasted opportunity that could have been stretched as more than just a brdge between the two seasons and turned into an arc, I loved this episode for two reasons. The first was just like the moment in BSG when the Pegasus arrived and for that moment, everything seemed a little better.

The second reason… when we get to know the Equinox crew we get a glimpse of what could have happened to the crew if they’d abandoned their morals and really did do what it took to get home. It was also a glimpse of what should have been in Voyager with the desperation and frustration overwhelming them.

The cliffhanger for the first part, the end of season five, was brilliant. Voyager was screwed, the Equinox crew were in control and the lines were drawn. Amazingly, this wasn’t a big technbabble ending in the second part which made it all the better.

I’m a doctor, not a commando!
Message in a Bottle (season 4)
When Voyager finds a communications doohicky, they send the Doctor’s program through to a Starfleet ship back home. Soon enough, the Doctor realises he’s on an experimental ship designed to operate in a war he’s never heard of, there’s a new EMH in the form of comedian Andy Dick and the ship has been taken over by Romulans.

Why do I love this episode? It’s fun.

The interactions between the two EMH’s make the episode brilliant. Robert Picardo and Andy Dick work wonderfully together and the best moment comes when they decide to take over the ship and take control of the bridge from the Romulans. Then of course, they have to fight not only the Romulans but Starfleet ships that have come to reclaim their project, which results in them struggling to figure out how to operate a ship, how to battle their enemies and how to tell their allies their not Romulans.

Not everyone has the ability to truly perceive time, its colors, its moods.
Year of Hell (season 4)
This was, hands down, without a doubt the best episode Voyager ever made. Ever.

In this two parter we meet Annorax, played by Kurtwood Smith of ‘That 70′s Show’, who’s also portrayed various roles in Star Trek including the Federation President in the TOS movie Th Undiscovered Country. In this, he’s a scientist who’s time-related experiment resulted in the end of his home planet and is now killing entire worlds and changing time recklessly trying to bring it all back. But no matter how close he gets, he’s never able to bring back his wife who was lost in the initial experiment and will never give up until he has her back.

So there’s the emotional part of the antagonist locked up with the plot, ad we have Chakotay trapped with him out of time trying to help.

Back on Voyager, that ship is suffering he consequences of Annorax fiddling with the space time continuum and over the course of a year, Voyager goes through a series of disasters losing power, resources, crew and more. The ship is barely habitable, Tuvok’s lost his sight, Neelix is forced to double up as security and with half the crew dead and Janeway on the edge.. things are not going well.

This is another two-part episode that could have been a full on story arc and really did show what Voyager could have been if they kept it all closer to the plot. Keeping to the original story, Voyager could have been this good for a while. Alas, the magic reset button was used at the end. It made sense in the setting – but it was a shame to lose all that drama and good stuff.

But despte all the wonderful pars, the best for me was Janeway’s big plan at the end. She was ready to sacrifice herself and what was left of her ship to take out Annorax and reset time back to normal. Then we had one of the best character moments between her and Tuvok.

They’d been written as a kind of professional friendship we’ve seen with Spock and Kirk. That original Human-Vulcan pairing never really seemed like a friendship to me until Star Trek II when Spock and Kirk were looking at each other threw the glass, Kirk weeping at the death of his friend. Much like that, this was the first moment that the friendship clicked for Janeway and Tuvok.

The ship is going down, Janeways ready for her suicide run and the ever loyal Tuvok refuses to leave and stays by her side. It was so simple, but said a lot more than other scenes with them.

Special mentions go to episodes like the Chute, which I couldn’t really place a moment for it was just a good episode, Timeless and the two-parter Futures End which placed Voyager in 1996. And of course the Meld, which Brad Dourif made all kinds of awesome… and his death later on was pretty good.

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