Last fall I finally started to watch Star Trek Voyager. It’s the 5th Star Trek Series and I already watched all episodes of TOS, TNG, and DS9 before. Yeah I skipped TAS, which I plan to catch up on eventually.
I did watch Voyager back in the days of free TV, I even had the VHS cassettes of the first 2 episodes. But unlike TNG or DS9 I never managed to see more than the first few seasons (at least in parts). So it was about time and I slowly but surely managed to watch one season after another. Since I recently finished the 6th Season, I wanted to highlight the three episodes I enjoyed the most.
Equinox (Part II)
The first episode of the season is about a rogue Starfleet ship that also landed in the Delta Quadrant. But to get home faster, the crew of the Equinox exploits and kills an Alien race. This two-parter is fascinating to me because it plays around with the idea of a more gritty approach. Voyager does get damaged and destroyed a lot, but the ship always returns to a nice clean and tidy state. The Equinox was not that lucky, they are running on fumes with only a few of the crew left. You could see Equinox as a window of how Voyager could’ve been. And to be honest, I wouldn’t really like this gritty version of Voyager. Part of the big appeal of the show for me is its focus on space anomalies, the character development of the crew and ethical dilemmas. This episode doesn’t differentiate that much from these topics. However, there is one thing that’s also extremely outstanding, the way Captain Janeway behaves. At some point in the episode, she is willing to risk everything to hunt down the Equinox. It’s not that completely unusual for her, there were some episodes before where she had her own strong opinions (e.g. Scorpion). But in this episode, Janeway almost felt more like Captain Ahab and less like a Star Trek Captain. Which adds another layer of how this episode stands out for me.
Blink of an Eye
This one categorizes as a typical space anomaly combined with ethics episode. Voyager gets trapped in the orbit of a planet, but the twist is, time progresses way faster on the planet. Whilst the crew tries to figure out how to escape the orbit, the civilization down below evolves continuously. As they develop further they manage to send Astronauts to Voyager and later even shoot at them (since Voyager is responsible for seismic activities on the planet). But of course, the situation gets resolved peacefully and in the end, they help Voyager to escape from the orbit. The whole concept of this episode is quite intriguing and interesting. The episode “Mad Idolatry” of The Orville offers a different (and probably a little bit funnier) take at this theme as well.
Life Line
To be honest, I enjoy all episodes of Star Trek Voyager starring the doctor. This time the doctor is sent to the Alpha Quadrant and meets his maker, Dr. Zimmerman. And of course, given their personalities, they don’t get along at all. Apart from all the funny scenes and nice guest appearances of Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi, its just double the fun to see two doctors arguing with each other.
The final season awaits
As mentioned before, this is just a small selection. To be honest, I enjoyed almost all episodes of this season, even the holodeck ones. That also includes one of the most hilarious scenes of the show so far; Janeway walks with the doctor (he is wearing a priest outfit) through the ship and the conversion goes like this:
“Oh, you know the story. Girl meets boy, girl modifies boys subroutines. […] And if there is something I don’t like, I can simply change it.”
Star Trek Voyager, Season 6, Episode 11, “Fair Haven”.
“I’ve noticed that humans usually try to change the people they fall in love with. What’s the difference?”
“In this case, it works”.
I already watched a few episodes of the 7th and final season, but I think I will probably take my time and enjoy Star Trek Voyager as long as possible.
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