All Rise...

Editor's Note

Our reviews of Star Trek: Voyager, Season Two (published September 27th, 2004), Star Trek: Voyager, Season Three (published August 30th, 2004), Star Trek: Voyager, Season Four (published November 17th, 2004), Star Trek: Voyager, Season Five (published November 24th, 2004), Star Trek: Voyager, Season Six (published January 12th, 2005), and Star Trek: Voyager, Season Seven (published February 2nd, 2005) are also available.

The Charge

"Do it!"

Opening Statement

"Seems I've found myself on the voyage of the damned."—The Doctor, "Time and Again"

By the time Star Trek: The Next Generation finished its seven-year run, with sister series Deep Space Nine already in full swing, the popularity of the Trek franchise was at an all-time high. Buoyed by The Next Generation's success, and looking to create a successor to keep the Trek factory humming, executive producer Rick Berman got together with TNG producers Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor to create a brand new series: Star Trek: Voyager.

Voyager began life with what was, in terms of Trek history, an ambitious mission—to leave the established Star Trek universe behind and wipe the proverbial slate clean by setting the series in a distant part of the galaxy, tens of thousands of light years away from the Federation. Not only would this provide the series with built-in closure—the journey home to Earth—but by placing the U.S.S. Voyager in completely uncharted space, Voyager would recapture the spirit of the original Star Trek series, drawing the focus away from the interplanetary politics that was DS9's métier and back to Star Trek's fundamental themes of exploration and discovery.

For a show that seemed to have everything going for it, Voyager was beset with controversy from its very inception. As odd as this may sound today, ten years ago the notion of a Star Trek series revolving around a female (gasp!) captain stirred a few waves in the famously male-dominated ranks of Trek fandom. Charges of "political correctness" abounded, and compounded with the introduction of Tuvok, a Vulcan character played by African-American actor Tim Russ, part of a racially diverse cast including Garrett Wang (Ensign Harry Kim), Robert Beltran (Commander Chakotay), and Roxann Dawson (Lt. B'Elanna Torres).

Once the series began airing in January of 1995, fan response to Voyager quickly polarized, with a sizable portion of the Star Trek nation rejecting Voyager as "TNG Lite" and a misguided rehash of earlier Trek incarnations. Though Voyager hung on through seven seasons, and was more warmly received outside of hardcore Trek fandom (it has been referred to as Star Trek for people who don't like Star Trek), the series never caught on the way TNG had, and for most of its run suffered a steady stream of criticisms from viewers who pointed out the episodes' numerous plot holes, continuity gaffes, and instances of lazy or poor writing. It seemed Voyager could do nothing right, with each attempt to placate the fans (such as the later seasons' increasing focus on the ever-popular Borg, and the introduction of ex-Borg bombshell Seven of Nine) seeming to provoke fresh waves of disdain. (One has to wonder why so many fans apparently tuned in each and every week while professing to hate the show.)

Nearly three years after the final Voyager episode, Star Trek: Voyager, Season One comes to DVD in a five-disc set featuring all fifteen episodes of the first season, giving fans a chance to revisit the series and give it a fresh viewing. Was Voyager really as awful as its detractors insisted? Or is it, in fact, a worthy member of the Star Trek family?

Facts of the Case

"You can't care a great deal about your crew and introduce them to the spectre of death at every opportunity!"—Neelix, "The Cloud"

Leaving the safe confines of the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant far, far behind, Star Trek: Voyager ventured further into the final frontier than any Trek series to date, all the way to the other side of the galaxy. With a premise that recalls both Battlestar Galactica and (rather less fortunately) Lost in Space, Voyager wasted little time getting its crew stranded so that the journey could begin. The main crew roster includes Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), the tough but nurturing captain of the U.S.S. Voyager; first officer Chakotay (Beltran), a Native American and former Maquis leader; Tuvok (Russ), Voyager's security chief and Janeway's longtime confidant; B'Elanna Torres (Dawson), Chief Engineer on Voyager and also a former Maquis; the Emergency Medical Holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo), or "The Doctor" for short, Trek's first holographic regular character; naïve greenhorn Harry Kim (Wang); and bad-boy pilot Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill). Rounding out the cast in this first season are Ethan Phillips as Neelix, the irrepressible Talaxian cook and morale officer; and Kes (Jennifer Lien), the waifish and mysterious Ocampan who tags along for the ride.

The fifteen episodes of the first season (truncated because the show debuted in January and a few first-season episodes were held over for Season Two) are spread across four discs, with a fifth disc reserved for bonus features.

"Caretaker"
While in pursuit of a band of Maquis renegades, Captain Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager are caught by a mysterious force and propelled 70,000 light years from Earth, into an uncharted section of the galaxy known as the Delta Quadrant.
Snap Judgment: A. The strongest premiere of any Trek series to date, the two-part "Caretaker" introduced the show's characters and the Delta Quadrant elegantly while providing a suspenseful, smartly written story.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "Captain, I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us."

"Parallax"
As tensions rise between the Maquis and Starfleet crew members aboard Voyager, the ship encounters another starship trapped near a quantum singularity. But is the trapped ship all that it appears?
Snap Judgment: B-. A decent Next Generation-style "spatial anomaly of the week" episode with a clever twist, and some interesting insights into what it means to be in Starfleet.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "She wanted to realign the lateral plasma conduit. I told her that would cause an overload!"

"Time and Again"
Voyager is hit by a massive shock wave, which turns out to have come from a planet that recently destroyed itself in a global catastrophe. While investigating, Janeway and Paris are accidentally sent one day into the past.
Snap Judgment: C+. Star Trek meets The China Syndrome! Greenpeace-style eco-terrorists provide plenty of in-your-face ecological moralizing, but the episode is saved from highhandedness by a scene with Paris threatening to devour a young child.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "It consists of differentially charged polaric ions, Captain."

"Phage"
While on an away mission in search of dilithium crystals, Neelix is attacked and his lungs surgically removed by aliens known as the Vidiians, whose entire race is dying of an incurable disease. Janeway must choose between Neelix's life and that of a desperate alien.
Snap Judgment: B+. AKA "Neelix's Lungs." Warning: do not watch this during dinner, especially if dinner is a pepperoni pizza. Otherwise, a fine episode that showcases the kind of moral dilemma the series handled so well.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "Tuvok, what would happen if we locked phasers and fired at the source?" "The walls of this chamber reflect directed energy. The phaser beam would ricochet along an unpredictable path, possibly impacting our ship in the process." "All right, we won't try that."

"The Cloud"
Venturing into what appears to be a nebula in search of omicron particles, Voyager inadvertently injures a life form.
Snap Judgment: A-. While the "It's actually a gigantic life form!" storyline is right out of the standard book of Star Trek plots, the real meat of the episode is the interactions between the characters, and features some of the first season's wittiest dialogue.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "A nucleonic beam along the edges of the breach should theoretically promote regeneration."

"Eye of the Needle"
The discovery of a wormhole leading to the Alpha Quadrant raises the crew's hopes for a speedy return home, but those hopes fade when the only being on the other side of the wormhole turns out to be a suspicious, wary Romulan.
Snap Judgment: A. A rock solid episode and a first-season highlight. The "will they get home?" premise at first raises fears of being stranded on Gilligan's Island, but a third act revelation takes the story into deeper dramatic waters.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "Verteron emanations! Tunnelling! Secondary particles!"

"Ex Post Facto"
While on a visit to a nearby world, Paris is accused and convicted of a murder he did not commit. His punishment: to relive the victim's murder every fourteen hours, via a neural implant.
Snap Judgment: C+. Voyager does film noir, with predictably lame results. Of particular note is the fact that everyone on this planet dresses like fashion models—albeit slightly psychotic ones—on Earth, circa 1985, despite the fact that this planet is 70,000 light years from Earth. (Or…is the episode suggesting that we got our fashion sense from aliens? That would at least explain the existence of Cher.) Obviously a script scavenged from the TNG reject pile.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "Vent a couple of LN2 exhaust conduits along the dorsal emitters!"

"Emanations"
While investigating an asteroid containing a previously unknown element, the Voyager crew stumbles upon a cavern littered with bodies. The asteroid turns out to be a graveyard of an alien culture that transports its dead, believing that they are being sent to the afterlife.
Snap Judgment: A-. Raising fascinating questions about our beliefs concerning death and life after death, "Emanations" is the kind of thoughtful, morally complex episode that justifies Voyager's existence and earns the "science fiction" label.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "As her tissues decayed, her cell membranes broke down into a bio-polymer resin which was then excreted by her epidermal layer."

"Prime Factors"
A race of hedonistic aliens invites the Voyager crew to take shore leave on their planet. Harry Kim discovers a piece of advanced technology that could bring Voyager 40,000 light years closer to home—but the aliens won't share it.
Snap Judgment: A-. Shore leave stories are always fraught with peril, but "Prime Factors" avoids the more obvious pitfalls to center on the kind of exquisitely painful moral dilemma that would never trouble Darth Vader, but which gives Starfleet captains conniption fits. A predictable resolution (like you thought they were gonna get home?) is uplifted by some terrific character-based drama.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "The manifold is being bombarded by anti-neutrinos, from the trajector field!"

"State of Flux"
A distress call from a derelict Kazon ship leads to the discovery of Federation technology, which can mean only one thing: a traitor within the Voyager crew.
Snap Judgment: B+. A primarily plot-driven show, but one that reveals threads that have been carefully woven into the past half-dozen episodes. The revelation of the traitor won't make you forget The Usual Suspects anytime soon, but the way the groundwork has been laid is impressive for a Star Trek show that's not Deep Space Nine.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "There's no doubt about it, Captain. The pattern buffer relays are clearly composed of bioneural fibers."

"Heroes and Demons"
Harry disappears from the holodeck, where he's been playing a holo-novel of Beowulf. Was he killed by that story's villain, the mystical beast known as Grendel?
Snap Judgment: A-. While everything about this episode screams "Next Generation reject"—I'd been hoping Voyager wouldn't resort to holodeck-themed episodes—"Heroes and Demons" works surprisingly well, not so much for the lame storyline as the hilarious character interactions. Viking-based humor: always funny.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "It appears to be some kind of photonic lattice."

"Cathexis"
A non-corporeal alien takes over the minds of the Voyager crew.
Snap Judgment: D. A classic example of Voyager at its most mediocre: a recycled premise, a technobabble-based solution, and a punch on the old "reset" button to round it all off. Even the running holo-novel subplot is more or less cribbed from previous series. Not the worst Voyager episode ever (that honor remains with the sixth season's "Spirit Folk"), but far from a high point of the series.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "You've placed the Coyote Stone at the crossroads of the Fifth and Sixth Realms which would divert Commander Chakotay's soul—that is, his consciousness—into the Mountains of the Antelope Women."

"Faces"
The Vidiians kidnap Paris and Torres, and split Torres into her Klingon and human halves.
Snap Judgment: B+. It wouldn't be Star Trek without a character being split into two beings, now would it? To its credit, "Faces" transcends the familiar premise with some fine dramatic acting from Roxann Dawson, and some genuinely creepy hijinks by the Vidiians, the Delta Quadrant's answer to the Incredible Melting Man.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "Deep level scans have revealed a network of microfissures, miniscule openings with develop briefly each time the field matrix remodulates."

"Jetrel"
Voyager encounters a scientist responsible for a horrible accident that killed Neelix's family; the scientist, Jetrel, diagnoses Neelix with a fatal illness.
Snap Judgment: A. Neelix, in this episode, finally (if temporarily) overcomes a crippling disability. No, I'm not talking about the "metrion" illness, but rather the deadly condition known as Jar-Jar Binks Syndrome. Rising above his annoying comic relief role in "Jetrel," Neelix gets some searing character moments in an episode that, in true Star Trek tradition, echoes the tragedies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their aftermath.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: Aside from some references to things like "metrion isotopes," this episode is actually fairly light on the technobabble.

"Learning Curve"
In response to misbehavior by Voyager's Maquis crew, Tuvok sets up a boot camp to give the Maquis a crash course in Starfleet training.
Snap Judgment: C-. Points for effort, but in the end this Star Trek: Scared Straight! episode doesn't throw off the intended sparks. Further sinking the episode is what is probably the…cheesiest?…line in all of Trek history (see the quote for the "Rebuttal Witnesses" section below). While featuring some fine comic moments by Tim Russ and Robert Beltran, "Learning Curve" ultimately limps rather than soars to the first-season finish line.
Your Moment of Treknobabble: "The cheese is full of volatile bacterial spores."

The Evidence

"This ship is the match of any vessel within 100 light years, and what do they do? 'Uh, well, uh, let's see if we can't find some space anomaly today that might rip it apart'!"—Neelix, "The Cloud"

Star Trek: Voyager is one of those maddening series that is just good enough to be disappointing that it isn't better. Like many Trek fans back in 1995, I had high hopes for the show and was excited by its enormous potential to shake up what was, even ten years ago, a franchise that was showing some wear. The notion of a Federation starship alone in an uncharted region of the galaxy, on a desperate mission to make it back home, promised unlimited possibilities. Freed from the constraints of an established universe, Voyager could go where no Trek had gone before; one could imagine epic storylines with a ship and crew that could build its own identity, its own rules, outside the boundaries of Starfleet. What would this crew be like, seven years down the line? How would the combination of desperation and limitless freedom shape these characters?

Needless to say, the series never made the most of that freedom, but it didn't entirely squander the opportunity, either. Without the need to fit its stories into existing continuity, and away from the Starfleet chain of command that so often made TNG's Enterprise feel more like a corporate entity than a vessel of exploration, Voyager was free to explore social and ethical issues to a degree the other series couldn't match; since Captain Janeway had no means of running her decisions past Starfleet Command, she was placed in the unique position of acting as final arbiter in the many moral quandaries that faced the crew. This made for some thought-provoking, suspenseful stories, and numerous opportunities for characters to make tough choices—sometimes correct, sometimes disastrous—that are the heart of drama.

For all that Voyager did wrong during its run, it also did quite a few things right, beginning with the character of Kathryn Janeway, my favorite Star Trek captain (next to Kirk, of course). Janeway was a rarity in science fiction television—a female character who wasn't either a sex-kitten bimbo or a cast-iron bitch. Instead, as played by Kate Mulgrew, Janeway is a strong but nurturing leader who is fiercely loyal to her crew, a very human captain who is firmly in command of her ship yet never too remote to show warmth or vulnerability to her subordinates.

As for the rest of the Voyager cast, I found this crew to be among the most appealing of any Trek series. TNG was a terrific show in its own right, but let's face it, aside from Picard, Worf, and Data, the Enterprise crew was about as charismatic as the IT department at a large credit union. That series struggled constantly to come up with interesting stories for its cheerfully bland secondary characters—a problem that plagues the similarly bloodless Next Generation feature films—and rarely generated much heat. Voyager does much better in this regard; compare the half-Klingon, half-human B'Elanna Torres, a fiery-tempered engineering whiz with a rebellious streak, with TNG's resident dorkwad Geordi LaForge. Sorry, but B'Elanna's got chunks of guys like Geordi in her stool. Or compare Tuvok's ultra-dry, sardonic Vulcan wit with annoyingly earnest Data. And Voyager's ship's doctor, the perpetually annoyed EMH played to acidic perfection by Robert Picardo, is one of the best characters Star Trek has ever produced.

Voyager also benefits from one of Jerry Goldsmith's best scores, a sweeping, melancholy theme that captures the loneliness and yearning for home that lies at the heart of the series. Production values are consistently high, with some terrific visual effects work by Foundation Imaging and an engaging, energetic visual style, albeit less apparent in this first season than in later years.

On DVD, Voyager is probably the best-looking of all the series so far, with a gorgeous transfer boasting impressive clarity and bold, vivid colors. As with previous Trek outings, darker scenes do look a little grainy, but overall the image quality is terrific, as good as or better than I remember from the original broadcasts. The audio quality is even better, with Voyager getting a Dolby Digital 5.1 makeover with a dynamic surround mix, most noticeable when it comes to ambient sounds (such as the starship's background rumble), action scenes, and starship flybys. The original 2.0 Surround track is also included, but pales by comparison.

A word on packaging: the love/hate relationship Trek fans have with this show is likely to extend to the Voyager box set itself, with a, shall we say, innovative package consisting of a transparent Day-Glo orange plastic case inside two clear plastic outer pieces that you have to lift off to get to the discs. The discs themselves are bare silver, with subtle printing indicating the series/episode titles and other information. The effect is rather stylish—this is the best-looking of the Star Trek box sets—with a cool, minimalist look that visually echoes the kind of transparent-plastic doodads you always see engineers fiddling around with on Trek series. Personally, I much prefer plastic packaging to cardboard, which is too easily damaged and shows its age poorly, and I find fold-out sets annoying when there are more then three discs in the set, so I like this packaging, although admittedly the discs are difficult to read, and the "naked" presentation makes it too easy to get the top disc dirty.

On the discs themselves, the menus are sharpened up a bit from previous Trek releases, but still basically the same-old, same-old. One extremely welcome innovation for these sets is that Paramount finally has organized chapter stops so that you can skip past the opening credits directly to the first scene. Star Trek is about nothing if not progress. Bravo.

Now to the extras. Since there are only fifteen episodes in this set, there had better be a slew of bonus features, and indeed, there's quite a bit of additional material. Unfortunately, there are still no episode commentaries—a glaring omission given the history and vast subculture that is Star Trek—but this is par for the course for Trek releases. (Let's hope the upcoming TOS season boxes rectify this oversight—if there's a Trek show that demands cast and crew commentaries, it's the original series.) The Voyager set offers eight behind-the-scenes featurettes, a photo gallery, and the usual set of Easter eggs (I counted five). Since the Easter eggs aren't that different from the featurettes, I don't know why Paramount hides them this way, but whatever.

"Braving the Unknown: Season One" covers the development of the show, and features Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor offering their stories on Voyager's inception. It's an informative featurette, but not especially detailed, and suffers from the absence of Brannon Braga, who was such a dominant influence on the series.

"Voyager Time Capsule: Kathryn Janeway" has Kate Mulgrew, in both newly-recorded and older interviews, talking about her auditions—audition footage is included—her feelings about Star Trek and its importance in her life and career, and a little plug for her Katharine Hepburn play Tea at Five. Mulgrew seems genuinely grateful and affectionate toward Voyager, and indicates that she's eager to play Janeway again if the opportunity comes up.

"The First Captain: Bujold" is what hardcore Voyager fans have always wanted to see: a glimpse of the original Janeway, as played by French-Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold (Dead Ringers, Tightrope). Bujold, originally cast over Mulgrew for the part, only lasted a couple of days in production before…well, stories differ as to whether Bujold walked away or was pushed, but I for one have always admired Bujold's acting and have always been curious to know how she fared as a starship captain, and how Voyager would have been different had she stayed on. Having finally seen Bujold's Janeway in action, all I can say is, thank God she left! While Bujold isn't entirely horrible in the role, her delivery is stiff and oddly detached. There isn't a shred of warmth in her mannered performance, and her take on Janeway is ponderous and dry—my guess is that she was modeling herself after Patrick Stewart's Jean-Luc Picard, affecting a similarly dignified, slightly regal demeanor. Again, it's not a bad performance per se, just wrong for Voyager. Fortunately, there's a wealth of footage included, with an entire scene from "Caretaker" pieced together, and additional commentary from (a carefully neutral) Rick Berman, so fans can make up their own minds as to who's the better Janeway. Berman doesn't say exactly why Bujold left, but this footage strongly suggests that it became obvious that Bujold wasn't working out.

"Cast Reflections: Season One" consists of interview snippets with various members of the cast at around the time of Voyager's series finale. DS9's Armin Shimerman also makes an appearance, talking briefly about his cameo role in the series pilot.

"Red Alert: Visual Effects, Season One" is a short (10 min.) but fascinating in-depth feature on the show's visual effects, including footage of the Voyager and other starship models, and demonstrations of the pyrotechnic effects.

"Real Science with Andre Bormanis" offers an interview with Bormanis, the science consultant for Voyager (currently writing for Star Trek: Enterprise) and presumably the man responsible for the show's often impenetrable stream of technobabble. While Bormanis seems largely unrepentant for his role in one of Trek's most-derided elements, he does have some interesting things to say about how fact blends with fiction to heighten the show's dramatic impact.

"Launching Voyager on the Web" has StarTrek.com webmaster Marc Wade taking viewers through the original Voyager web site. Seeing what was, in 1995, a cutting-edge web site—but which now looks a little quaint—is a fun trip down nostalgia lane.

"On Location with the Kazon" is merely a few minutes of on-location footage from the filming of "Caretaker," and I'm not sure why this was presented as its own featurette, but it's a diverting enough peek behind the scenes at Star Trek's version of the Hell's Angels.

Rounding out the extras are the requisite photo gallery (are there people out there who actually care deeply about the inclusion of this feature on DVDs?) and, of course, Easter eggs aplenty. While the hidden material isn't special enough to really warrant the "Section 31" treatment, it's pretty interesting, ranging from some insights from Mulgrew into a crucial scene from "Caretaker," to Brannon Braga surfacing to talk about "Phage" and Janeway's character, to an amusing anecdote from Piller concerning Janeway's hairstyle.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

"Get the cheese to sickbay!"—Torres, "Learning Curve"

The main problem with Voyager isn't so much that it's a bad show—truthfully, it's about on a par with TNG in most respects, though better in some aspects and worse in others—as that it failed to live up to its potential. The story of Voyager is a story of lost opportunities; the show had a tendency to introduce fascinating plot elements—such as the Maquis-Starfleet friction within Voyager's crew—only to quickly iron them out and dismiss them. You only have to look at DS9's epic conflicts between the Bajorans and Cardassians to see how much narrative gold could be spun from the tensions between opposing groups thrown together, yet Voyager did next to nothing with the possibility of an ongoing struggle between the ship's Maquis and Starfleet crew members. Why even introduce this element if the series was never going to explore it? Other potentially fruitful storylines, such as this season's clash between Torres and Lt. Carey, were introduced only to be forgotten.

The series also wimped out in dealing with the potentially fascinating challenges inherent in being a Starfleet ship stranded half a galaxy away from Starfleet. The infamous "disposable shuttles" perfectly exemplify this weakness—instead of making repair and supply problems a major factor in the series development, it was never used as much more than a plot device and ongoing irritation. Voyager could be practically destroyed in one episode, merely to be magically regenerated in the next. Over the course of the series, the dreaded "reset button" was hit far too many times, further wasting a valuable opportunity to explore multi-episode or season-length arcs the way DS9 did. (Having said that, it is to Voyager's credit that it did do a pretty good job in that direction now and then, especially in later seasons.) Numerous lapses in continuity and story logic—not to mention the constant flood of technobabble—also hampered numerous episodes.

Most depressing is the fact that, all too often, Voyager fails in its promise to explore new alien races and stories that TNG and DS9 couldn't tell. "Ex Post Facto" is only the most egregious offender in this regard, giving us aliens that supposedly live 70,000 light years away from Earth yet dress like Earthlings and behave just like people on Earth. This was a major problem during Voyager's run; again, why send the ship across the galaxy only to give us aliens identical to those in the Alpha Quadrant? Sometimes, as with the photonic beings of "Heroes and Demons," we did get some truly different aliens, but too often they were right in line with Star Trek's endemic lack of imagination when it comes to creating alien species beyond the tired "forehead of the week" variety.

Failure of imagination and lazy writing too often kept Voyager from achieving what it set out to accomplish. Given its "clean slate" premise and completely open horizon, Voyager could have written its own story, but chose too often to rewrite the same stories we'd seen many times before.

Closing Statement

"Why pretend we're going home at all, when all we're really going to do is investigate every cubic millimeter of this quadrant?"—The Doctor, "The Cloud"

Star Trek: Voyager embodies the best and worst of Star Trek in the era of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. Excellent production values, strong acting, and fascinating high-concept storylines keep fans coming back to the table, even as a basic lack of vision and nerve—motivated, no doubt, by a misguided need to water down Star Trek to make it more palatable to the mainstream viewer—prevents the series from realizing its potential. Torn between wanting to do something different and wanting to maintain the familiar tropes of Star Trek, Voyager too often falls somewhere in the middle, a mixed bag of original moments and familiar retreads. It's understandable that so many diehard Trekkers rejected the show, but looking back at this set of first-season episodes, it's hard to see what the fuss was about. Year One of Voyager is a solid, consistently watchable season that offers far more highs than lows.

The Verdict

Star Trek: Voyager, Season One is hereby sentenced to seven years of recalibrating the EPS manifolds and resonating the phase-modulated chronotons into the flux matrix.

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