There are many criticisms of Star Trek: Voyager. There were numerous continuity errors and several episodes that should never have aired. And when compared with the political edge that Deep Space Nine brought to Star Trek it felt like Voyager became an inferior version of The Next Generation. Save for the location Voyager did, on occasion, feel like The Next Generation in the Delta Quadrant.
The pressures of being 70,000 light years away from the Federation were illustrated well to begin with (though overshadowed by the Kazon and that annoying Seska. Thank God she was never seen again after Season 3). Yet considering that the Enterprise in TNG saw a different alien almost every episode the Voyager only seemed to meet the Kazon and the Ocampa for the first two seasons. I know there were more aliens than that but it felt that the Kazon took over the first seasons and that good illustration of being far away from the Federation soon disappeared. In the first few episodes there were concerns about dilithium for the warp core. By Season 5 the Voyager can travel across the void for two months without concerns about power; hell the crew can use the holodeck whenever they want.
Further there were some episodes that never used the potential to show Voyager's unfortunate situation. There was an episode where the Voyager was split into two (one damaged, one undamaged) and the undamaged one soon becomes overrun by Vidians. Several plot twists later and Janeway (undamaged) decides to destroy her Voyager and save the other one (which is Vidian free). That's fine. Acceptable. Yet the damaged Voyager, which is now the only one remaining, is severely damaged. We never see the implications of this. It would have been interesting to see an episode dedicated to the repairs; something to show the perils of their situation.
However this is not all criticism. For all the faults mentioned above and more (how come Voyager used 92 torpedoes instead of its assigned 38?) it was a rather interesting and watchable series. Though it slips just beneath DS9 in quality it is a decent instalment. The casting of Mulgrew was inspired, far better than the Canadian-French actress (as seen in the Season 1 DVD extras) who was banal in every sense of the word. There were good episodes; Scorpion, Year of Hell, Caretaker, Author Author, Equinox and many others. These episodes showed the plight of Voyager in the delta quadrant and Author Author was TNG in its moral issues; whether the EMH has rights over his work.
Voyager is a watchable Star Trek series. There are problems with it; continuity, boring episodes and uninspired characters (Neelix was a real pain in the.....) but overall the screen presence of Captain Janeway, the EMH and his relationship with Seven of Nine made it a worthy and intriguing instalment.
At the time of writing Voyager has an IMDb rating of 6.9/10. Which is in par with Enterprise. That is the biggest mistake of Star Trek. How Voyager, which innovated in many ways can ever be compared to the mess that is Enterprise is beyond me.
The pressures of being 70,000 light years away from the Federation were illustrated well to begin with (though overshadowed by the Kazon and that annoying Seska. Thank God she was never seen again after Season 3). Yet considering that the Enterprise in TNG saw a different alien almost every episode the Voyager only seemed to meet the Kazon and the Ocampa for the first two seasons. I know there were more aliens than that but it felt that the Kazon took over the first seasons and that good illustration of being far away from the Federation soon disappeared. In the first few episodes there were concerns about dilithium for the warp core. By Season 5 the Voyager can travel across the void for two months without concerns about power; hell the crew can use the holodeck whenever they want.
Further there were some episodes that never used the potential to show Voyager's unfortunate situation. There was an episode where the Voyager was split into two (one damaged, one undamaged) and the undamaged one soon becomes overrun by Vidians. Several plot twists later and Janeway (undamaged) decides to destroy her Voyager and save the other one (which is Vidian free). That's fine. Acceptable. Yet the damaged Voyager, which is now the only one remaining, is severely damaged. We never see the implications of this. It would have been interesting to see an episode dedicated to the repairs; something to show the perils of their situation.
However this is not all criticism. For all the faults mentioned above and more (how come Voyager used 92 torpedoes instead of its assigned 38?) it was a rather interesting and watchable series. Though it slips just beneath DS9 in quality it is a decent instalment. The casting of Mulgrew was inspired, far better than the Canadian-French actress (as seen in the Season 1 DVD extras) who was banal in every sense of the word. There were good episodes; Scorpion, Year of Hell, Caretaker, Author Author, Equinox and many others. These episodes showed the plight of Voyager in the delta quadrant and Author Author was TNG in its moral issues; whether the EMH has rights over his work.
Voyager is a watchable Star Trek series. There are problems with it; continuity, boring episodes and uninspired characters (Neelix was a real pain in the.....) but overall the screen presence of Captain Janeway, the EMH and his relationship with Seven of Nine made it a worthy and intriguing instalment.
At the time of writing Voyager has an IMDb rating of 6.9/10. Which is in par with Enterprise. That is the biggest mistake of Star Trek. How Voyager, which innovated in many ways can ever be compared to the mess that is Enterprise is beyond me.