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Kathryn Janeway - Kate Mulgrew Chakotay - Robert Beltran Tom Paris - Robert Duncan McNiell Neelix - Ethan Phillips Seven Of Nine - Jeri Ryan Tuvok - Tim Russ B'Elanna Torres - Roxann Biggs Dawson Harry Kim - Garrett Wang The Doctor - Robert Picardo 
OTHER SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 6 Season 7 OTHER STAR TREK SHOWS Star Trek The Next Generation Deep Space Nine Enterprise OTHER TREKS THROUGH SPACE Babylon 5 The new Battlestar Galactica 
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NightThe Voyager is traversing a huge void of starless space, a place with no sense of distance, time, movement or progress. The toll is starting to be felt by all the crew, Captain Janeway included, but the discovery of two alien lifeforms at the heart of the void livens things up a bit. Season 5 of VOYAGER gets off to a good start with a surprising black and white recreation of the old FLASH GORDON serials. Lovingly aped, it's a startling, and very funny, way to kick off the new season, but the story then takes a turn for the deeper and more philosophical with the idea that the loss of all external reference points could have a psychologically damaging effect over time. That is until the aliens appear and everything descends into some standard guff about toxic waste dumping for profit (this is not a good thing folks!). Still, it's not a dull start to the new season. TopDroneThe birth of a new nebula opens up a whole new area of research for the crew of the Voyager, but an accident puts the crew of a shuttle at risk and they are beamed back onto Voyager just in time. Complications, however, fuse the Doctor’s portable holoemitter with some of Seven of Nine’s borg nanoprobes to create a new form of borg drone, one that makes the most of the emitter’s technology from the future. The collective, as soon as they detect the drone, want him as his technology will make them even more unstoppable. It is up to Seven of Nine to instil in him a sense of individuality before they arrive. When there is a problem with a STAR TREK franchise show the best thing to do is to throw in a Borg episode. There are very few poor Borg episodes and this continues that trend. The set up that creates the new drone is a bit questionable to say the least (only the Doctor’s emitter and Seven’s nanoprobes get fused?), but once that is out of the way then the rest proceeds very nicely. There’s more than a hint of THE NEXT GENERATION episode The Offspring about the story as the unemotional Seven is detailed to show the drone the ways of the world and finds her pride being stirred by the fact that he exceeds expectations. The ending is predictable from the start and also mirrors the earlier show. There’s also a nice line of consideration given to the possible consequences of the drone’s existence. Let him live and the Borg could become even more of a deadly threat than ever, but can the only other option be murder? TopExtreme RiskA probe gets locked in the atmosphere of a gas giant and an alien race decides to claim salvage on it. The first team to get there will claim the probe, but both sides have to build a new type of shuttle to withstand the intense forces involved. This isn't made any easier by Voyager's chief engineer losing all interest in anything. Characters' emotional problems usually don't make for interesting storylines in the STAR TREK universe, but this episode manages to be different by initially showing the changes in B'Elanna's behaviour, but making no attempt to explain it. The creation of the new shuttle is a mere sideshow compared to the story of her depression. True enough, there is a final intervention in which Chakotay demands an answer as to why she is acting this way and she gives it, but it manages to stay on the right side of glibness and even though she comes around there is the real sense that this is the first step in her recovery rather than the last. Roxann Biggs Dawson gets to play something other than just angry or irritated for a change and it makes for a nice change of pace for her. TopIn The FleshThe Voyager encounters a mock up of Starfleet HQ that is completely accurate down to every detail. It is being used as a training ground by Species 8472, though for what reason remains unclear. Janeway, however, sees it a chance to open a dialogue and perhaps forestall a war. The episode opens with the surprising sight of the Chakotay and Tuvok back in San Francisco and so the unravelling of the mystery of the place is the first, fairly standard, order of business, but it is once the purpose of the place is revealed that the story begins to get really interesting and takes some twists that are unexpected. It might descend into a bit of a talking fest, but this is the kind of story that adds depth to the franchise. TopOnce Upon a TimeAn away team runs into trouble with ion storms and crash lands on a planet, burying themselves deep underground. Whilst the crew of the Voyager frantically search for survivors, Neelix tries to shield his god-daughter from the news that her mother might not be coming home. Kids and STAR TREK don't mix. Episodes that revolve around children are rarely amongst the best and so it proves here. The disaster striking the away team isn't the most dramatic and the search for them is really pretty dull. Add into that the child's playground playing out on the holodeck and you might get a few children interested in the show, but it's a real turn off for anyone else. TopTimelessThe Voyager crew build a prototype slipstream drive in attempt to get home sooner, but things go wrong and the ship is entombed in ice for 17 years, the crew dead. The only survivors of the incident, Chakotay and Kim, return to the site with stolen Borg and Federation technology in an attempt to change history and save their friends. Right on their tail is a Federation ship commanded by one Captain Geordi LaForge. Two figures wander an icy wasteland until they find what they are looking for. The camera backs away to show the Starship Voyager entombed in an icy grave. It's a stunning image to start off the best episode that the series has come up with in this season. It continues to impress as it reveals that the crew are actually dead and with its depiction of a ship destroyed by ice. Breaking the laws of time is something of a regular happening in the STAR TREK universe, to the point where you have to wonder why the Federation continues to have such a dark view on such things and there is never any doubt that Kim and Chakotay will succeed, but there is time enough spent on the effects that the disaster have had on the older Chokotay and, most especially, the elder Kim to make the human side of the story more affecting. Having the chasing ship being captained by STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION's Geordi LaForge is a stunt that distracts rather than pleases, not least because he is given nothing much to do and fails miserably to bring down a tiny runabout with the full might of a starship. Minor flaws aside (and the script even has Janeway explaining away the time paradox by stating that it's not even worth trying to understand it!) this is a dramatic, exciting and definitely above par entry into the canon, not least for the stunning opening sequence. TopInfinite RegressSeven of Nine starts to suffer episodes in which she is hearing voices. An examination into her remaining Borg implants show that she is receiving a signal for a piece of Borg technology that has been tampered with by an alien race out for revenge. As the crew fight to disarm the device, Seven is assailed by the personalities of many beings that the Borg assimilated. A mind meld with Tuvok might be the only hope for her sanity, but it could leave them both with permanent brain damage. There is both good and bad in this episode. It relies heavily on Jeri Ryan, requiring her to take on a number of alternative personalities as well as showing all kinds of emotional distress. She handles all of this with great aplomb and it is certainly the best work that she has done on the show to date. Her pain makes the situation more real and more immediate. The mind meld with Tuvok is suitably hellish in its imagery. The plot that the alien race has come up with to use against the Borg is not unlike one that Starfleet came up with in I, Borg, which is nice counterpoint, dulling the righteous anger that Janeway would like to show. Sadly, everything descends into mawkishness around the character of Naomi Wildman, the child who was at the heart of the not very good Once Upon A Time, which dilutes the quality of the episode. TopNothing HumanA non-humanoid lifeform is beamed aboard and immediately leaps on B'Elanna, taking over several of her organs to aid in its own healing process. In order to help remove it and save her life, the Doctor creates a holographic recreation of one of the greatest exobiologists ever. Only later does he learn that the man was one of Cardassia's greatest ever war criminals and the research that might save B'Elanna was based on the suffering of countless of his victims. Science fiction provides a unique backdrop to discuss any manner of current subjects and medical ethics has always done well in the STAR TREK universe. This story, however, has more echoes of the BABYLON 5 episode Deathwalker. These are interesting questions that are being debated here - whether research gained by unethical means should be ignored, whether one life saved is more important than what was done, whether the memories of those who died is better served by the destruction of what was learned or by it being put to good use and whether the use of the information leads to further abuses. They are also embedded into a story that is based around those questions, but isn't a sermon about them. The episode does try to both have its cake and eat it by using the information and then destroying it in a fit of righteous pique, but that's a fudge that shows the depth of the concepts being considered. The alien being causing all the problems is very nicely rendered as well. For once it's nice to see a being that isn't just a human with a funny forehead. TopThirty DaysTom Paris is stripped of his rank and placed into solitary confinement for thirty days. In order to pass the time, he dictates a letter to his estranged father explaining the circumstances for his latest incarceration, circumstances that involve a unique spatial phenomenon and potential ecological disaster. The green message permeates the later series in the STAR TREK franchise, but rarely as obviously and unsubtly as here. The discovery of a mass of oceans in space, held together by an ancient technology that is failing due to the mining operations of the inhabitants is a nice set up and Paris's interest in the sea and sailing are also well done, but his descent into violent action and throwing away his career and potentially his place on Voyager overnight with little thought about it is too abrupt to really work. The message is simple - treat the planet nice or it will fail you. They could have written a pamphlet. TopLatent ImageThe Doctor is losing his memory and starts to investigate. He learns that his programme is being tampered with by unknown persons. A trap catches Captain Janeway in the act and she is forced to explain that something which happened 18 months ago caused his programme to destabilise to the point of destruction and only his memory wipe could stop it. Now she is planning to do the same, but this Doctor is not the same one back then and perhaps there are other ways to deal with the situation. What, though, could be so terrible to cause so drastic a response? Grief is a terrible emotion to have to deal with, but guilt over a death might be just as hard and doctors have to make the kind of decisions that could lead to that guilt every day. This is an examination of what doctors are faced with and what we ask them to do. It's about handling grief and guilt and for once the point is buried in the story rather than the other way around and the writers have the courage to not come up with a facile resolution. Or perhaps they just couldn't think of one. TopBride of Chaotica!Tom Paris and Ensign Kim are playing their favourite Captain Proton holodeck programme when the ship hits a weak boundary between space and subspace. Energy beings similar in construction to holograms appear on the holodeck and take the programme to be reality and assume that they are in immediate threat of invasion. They strike out against that enemy and the ship itself comes under threat. They could be lost to normal space forever unless Captain Janeway can become the bride of Chaotica. If there is one invention that the modern franchise of STAR TREK has really advanced with then it's the holodecks. From the Dixon Hill novels of Captain Picard and the danger of a holographic Moriarty from STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION to the Bond pastiche of Dr Bashir I Presume? from DEEP SPACE NINE, holodeck based stories have provided the most fun and this is no exception to that fine tradition. The very first shot of this season was of the black and white 30's FLASH GORDON/BUCK ROGERS spoof 'Captain Proton' and it's cropped up a couple of times since then, but now it gets its own full-blown episode and it was worth the wait because, whilst it is slight and frothy it is the most fun that the show (and the franchise) has had in a long time. First off, the recreation of the 30s chapter plays (or serials if you prefer) is lovingly created with crystal clear black and white photography and great retro set dressing. Costumes and dialogue all play along with the theme as the holographic characters carry on in true style and there is even a brilliantly rubbish robot to boot as well as a screaming secretary. If the recreation doesn't make you smile then the reactions of the various members of the crew will. Whilst Harry Kim and Tom Paris are devotees, it is wonderful to see Kate Mulgrew's reaction as Captain Janeway, first to the general situation, then to the proposed resolution, then to the part that she is expected to play and the costume she is expected to wear. That is nothing, however, to the performance that she gives as the Starfleet captain pretending to be queen of the spider people. It's very, very funny and proof that she ought to be given more of the lighter moments as well. The plot itself is nonsense, but the plot is not what it's about. Just sit back and revel in the silliness that is Captain Proton's finest adventure. TopGravityOne of Voyager's shuttles with Tom, Tuvok and the Doctor on board crashlands onto a barren desert planet. There, they meet with a young woman who has managed to survive for several years. The planet is at the heart of a gravitational anomaly that leaves time travelling at a different rate, so whilst the ship takes a couple of days looking for a way to get them back, the shuttle crew experience the passage of months. Time enough for the young woman to fall in love with Tuvok, an emotion that he is unable to reciprocate. Bog standard stuff this that is barely raised by the presence of Lori Petty as the alien girl or the nifty CGI spiders that form the characters' staple diet on the planet. The emotional situation between Tuvok and the alien girl is too clumsily developed to be really effective and the use of flashbacks to Tuvok's training distract rather than add depth. TopBlissThe ship discovers a wormhole that leads directly back to Earth, but Seven of Nine is not convinced of its authenticity. As the rest of crew find all of their hopes being satisfied, she finds that they are all being duped, mentally manipulated into seeing what they wish for the most whilst the ship is drawn inside a giant being that is going to digest them. We've been here and done this before, though previously it would have been Commander Data that proved to be immune, but the execution of the story is solid enough to make it stand up. We could have done without the continued appearance of the ship's child Naomi Wildman who is starting to get annoying and the Moby Dick references are just old hat. TopDark Frontier - Part 1A Borg ship attacks the Voyager, but they manage to escape, destroying their attacker in the process. Analysis of the debris reveals a target that is too tempting to pass up - a heavily damaged Borg ship from which they might be able to extract a transwarp coil during a daring raid. Of course, it could all be an elaborate trap set by the Borg queen to trap Seven of Nine. The Borg don't appear in duff episodes as a rule. STAR TREK's boogeymen are reserved for stories that have a bit more thought put into them, partly because of the increasing mythology behind them. Dark Frontier lives up to that tradition. The story is nicely set up and manages to weave an exciting strand of action (space battles and armed raids) in with the more emotional stuff of Seven of Nine not only confronting her family history through tapes of her parents' research into the Borg, but also having to confront her conflicting desire and fear of rejoining the collective. The only real downside to the story is the Borg's continued behaviour of ignoring obvious threats. We are told constantly how quickly the Borg adapt and yet to date they haven't adapted to the thought that having humans wandering around inside their ships is generally a bad idea, especially when they are carrying bombs and phaser rifles. How many times do they have to lose out through this behaviour before they figure it out? Still, every other aspect of the depiction of the Borg is impressive from the makeup to the environment and the episode ends on cliffhanger that means the audience will just have to come back to find out what happens next. Resistance is Futile. TopDark Frontier - Part 2Seven of Nine learns that her time spent on Voyager was organised by the Borg so that she could become a unique individual. Though they already have her knowledge of humans, they desire her insight into their behaviour in order to mount a successful assimilation of the Federation. She is torn between her desire to return to the collective and her distaste for the Borg's assimilation techniques. Janeway, meanwhile, has come up with a rescue plan based on the research of Seven's parents. The conclusion to this story is not quite as satisfying as it ought to have been, but remains a superior episode in this current season. The Borg plan, to infect Earth with a nanoprobe virus that assimilates everyone slowly so that nobody notices, doesn't seem to need Seven's input at all and surely they had a plan to deal with the fact that she might be resistant to their plans after so long amongst the humans? Apparently not. They also don't have a plan when it comes to dealing with heavily armed Federation officers wandering around the heart of their empire even though the Borg queen is aware of the threat that they pose. These aren't great flaws, but they do mar an otherwise effective story. The encounter with the Borg queen is at the heart of this episode. It is her wheedling attempts to bring Seven back into the fold, a mixture of pleading and manipulation, sympathy and arrogance, that drive the interaction and ther fact that Seven actually seems at times on the brink of rejoining the collective is great. The final escape is managed as much by luck as judgement with another Borg vessel destroyed, making Voyager the most effective Starfleet vessel against them ever. TopThe DiseaseThe Voyager is helping a ship which travels so slowly that the crew are the ancestors of those that first set out when Harry Kim has an intimate encounter with a member of the crew, against Captain's orders and Federation protocol. When he exhibits signs of a biochemical attachment to the woman, the Captain is furious, but he continues the liaison, unaware that his girlfriend is the architect of a rebellion that might destroy both ships. What is the nature of love? Is it a disease that infects humanity? Is it simply the work of chemicals - pheromones and the like? Whatever, it can make men abandon duty and career and generally act stupid. It can also make them mature and grow. This is a character study of Harry Kim and whilst it is competently done, it doesn't make for the most thrilling drama and coming straight after Dark Frontier it suffers by comparison. TopOblivionTom and B’Elanna get married but their marital bliss is short-lived as the ship starts to come apart at the molecular level. Investigations into the cause lead to some surprising, and worrying, conclusions. STAR TREK:VOYAGER has produced some good episodes, but it has rarely been surprising. The cause of the issues affecting the ship in this episode are not so much surprising as downright stunning. Plot twists like this don't come along very often and are to be cherished when they do. The episode is also unsentimental with the fates of many of the characters and a conclusion that is both downbeat, but also more than a little cruel. All of which makes it one of the best episodes that the show has produced in a while, if not since it started. TopThe FightThe Voyager blunders into 'chaotic space' a region where the normal laws of physics apply, but change randomly all over the place. At the same time, Chakotay starts to receive hallucinations based around the boxing programme that he was running on the Holdeck. The doctor suspects that these are messages from aliens that live in chaotic space, but Chakotay's fear of hereditary insanity leads him to fight against them. Exactly why the aliens choose to couch their message in a story of a prize fight is somewhat thin, as is the backstory to Chakotay's fight against them and the hallucinations themselves neither engage nor convince as a source of communication, rendering the final resolution ineffective. TopThink TankVoyager finds a whole race of bounty hunters on its tail, but assistance appears to come in the shape of an alien think tank, a group of geniuses who travel the delta quadrant solving problems for a price. The price here is Seven of Nine. The main reason to watch this episode is for the performance by Jason Alexander as the chief negotiator for the think tank. It's a smug, satisfied performance that stays just the right side of slimy and makes for an alien who is more memorable than the episode he appears in. The plot is fairly standard, althoug it is nice to see a problem that the crew actually sit around and discuss, debate and plan rather than sort out with two or three minutes of technobabble. TopJuggernautVoyager discovers a Malon freighter spilling its toxic radiation all over the place and about to explode. With their warp engines off line, the crew have to try and save the freighter, but their efforts are hampered by something in the radiation; something that can't possibly be alive. Toxic waste is bad and the Malon stories are very unsubtle emphases on that fact. The running around the inside of the Malon freighter and the hard work that everyone has to do makes the episode less annoying than it might have been, but in the end it's a case of we've got the message, can we move on please. TopSomeone to Watch Over MeWhen Seven of Nine's interest in human mating rituals gets her into hot water with B'Elanna, the Doctor takes over her tutelage in matters of love. When goaded by Tom Paris, he takes a bet that he can make Seven the belle of the ball, but then realises that he is falling in love with her himself. There isn't enough out and out fun on STAR TREK:VOYAGER, but this episode is fun. Sure, it's ripped off from MY FAIR LADY (or PYGMALIION if you prefer), but that really doesn't matter. The scene where the Doctor and Seven get involved in a rendition of 'You are my sunshine' alone is worth the time spent watching the episode and there will be a big, goofy smile on your face throughout much of the episode, although the ending is inevitably bittersweet. Top11:59Some research into the history database unearths the truth about one of Captain Janeway's most revered ancestors. Apparently gallivanting around the Delta Quadrant doesn't have enough stories for this series, so we get involved in this really rather dull flashback story set around the building of a special project being held up by one man unwilling to sell his property. Holding onto the past at the cost of the future is not a good idea is the unsubtle theme, but by the time that we get to the inevitable conclusion we really couldn't give a damn. TopRelativityA Federation time ship from the future takes Seven of Nine out of the time stream and informs her that Voyager will be destroyed unless she can go back and stop the saboteur. This leads to complications as Seven needs to appear in several times in order to identify the saboteur and yet still remain unknown to Captain Janeway. STAR TREK: VOYAGER has developed a foolproof way of getting around time paradoxes - first it ignores them and then says 'don't bother to try and understand them'. It's a rather cavalier attitude to storytelling, but this is an episode that is meant more to travel at a fast clip and entertain than to make any sense. The identity of the saboteur isn't telegraphed, although it doesn't come as any real surprise and the motivation is particularly weak. Take a leaf out of the show's book and don't bother trying to analyse it, just enjoy. TopWarheadThe first away mission commanded by Harry Kim sees an artificial lifeform transported aboard Voyager only to turn out to be really smart bomb determined to wipe out its target at the cost of thousands of lives. Janeway and the crew have to find a way to disarm it without delivering it to its target or having it detonate on board. One of the crazy sequences in John Carpenter's DARK STAR is spun out to episode length here. Create a thinking weapon and beware for it might end up not thinking the way that you want it to. Completely derivative it may be, but everything moves along nicely and plays out in a satisfying fashion. TopEquinox - Part 1Voyager encounters another Starfleet vessel stranded in the Delta Quadrant. The Equinox is under attack from creatures from another dimension and when Voyager assists, they are in turn attacked. The Captain of the Equinox doesn't have good answers for why the creatures are attacking and the truth is a dark secret. Unfortunately, just as the ships' defences go down, the crew of the Equinox betray their comrades and run away. The inevitable cliffhanger episode at the end of the season and it's a solid if unspectacular affair. The arrival of another ship in the Delta Quadrant is fortuitous in the extreme and you can't help but wonder if the story wouldn't have been stronger if it had been a non-starfleet vessel. There wouldn't have been the ethical conflict between two captains of opposing views, but it might have been slightly more believable. It might also have been more believable had the crew of the Equinox (all about four of them) not been able to completely outwit the whole ship's complement of Voyager. Ah well, see you in season 6. Top |
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