This week I’m going to follow my journey into being a dork. I never thought I’d watch a show like this, but it has happened. My girlfriend is to blame, as somehow I’m dating a bigger nerd, but none the less, Star Trek has now fallen into the category of shows I enjoy. Granted it is Voyager, so I’m no cult member, but it is still a new leaf. I also feel a little better since I did not categorically love it and found many issues with the show. I find that my issues are minor, as this is Star Trek and not something that is expected to be well written. Anyway, now we’re going in to warp drive to review “Star Trek: Voyager”; engage! (Chris Jericho hates me now since I’m shamelessly pandering).
Voyager begins with the stubborn captain making a bad decision. This is a theme that is replayed over and over throughout the series, yet somehow everyone still trusts her. She comes through in the end, but that’s a lot of years she shaved off of everyone’s lives for her stupid pride. She was a bad captain. She made rash decisions, disobeyed the prime directive and often belittled her crew’s opinions. She also came off as very selfish. Don’t let her sappy speeches and forced caring fool you; she has herself in mind. Don’t be fooled, Captain Janeway is a menace.
The main reason I don’t like the captain is because Harry Kim deserves more respect. He is the token Asian ensign that is a little too overeager. By overeager, I mean he really wanted to go home. Yes, let the crew mock the young guy on his first assignment for wanting to go home to his fiancée that they wrote off early on. Screw that guy for being upset that his stupid captain stranded them 75 years from home because she wanted to save a bunch of people she didn’t know at the expense of her own crew. Also, he never got promoted. Janeway said no one would get a promotion because the circumstance, but two people got them! Poor Harry never got promoted, never found anyone that he loved that didn’t die, and he gets no respect. He finally gets respect in the last episode when he becomes a captain, and even still Janeway bosses him around. Unbelievable.
"Don't worry Dave, I'm good."
Enough ranting from me, I think I’ll try to be constructive here. From what I watched and what I’ve read, like me, most people were really sad about this shows direction after season 3. They had some interesting characters and directions to go, and they decided to make it the Seven of Nine and Doc show. Don’t get me wrong, these characters are interesting. I personally think Robert Picardo (the Doctor) was far and away the best actor on the show, but it seemed like he and Seven were the only ones that ever did anything. Everyone else stopped developing characters, other than Tom and B’Elanna finally completing the relationship that was painfully obvious.
The real reason I have contempt for this show is the finale. Even though “Star Trek” fans were disappointed and angry about this show, I think it as a good show. Granted I don’t get an erection when William Shatner is on the television, so my opinion might be less than credible. Apparently even Robert Beltran hated the show, and he was in 170 episodes of it. But I digress. I liked it, until the end. It starts of 26 years after the debut and you see all the crew as old people. Apparently, they’re sad because Seven dies, Beltran’s character dies, and the resident black Vulcan is crazy. So, the captain is not happy about this, so she goes back in time to change the past. She is such a bullhead that she goes back in time and fights with herself to see who is right. She’s so awful; she hates herself when they meet. Anyway, her plan works, and we never know what happens. So 7 seasons of a show is built to lead to these people getting back to earth, and we don’t even see it happen? We see they’re universe, but then that is all changed and we’re left to wonder. They even had to create a love story in the final episode to justify all of this. Robert Beltran’s character Chakotay and Seven get together so we have a reason to feel for them when Seven dies and ruins his life. Would it have been that hard to build up to that a little? Would it have been hard to build up to them getting home and killing their biggest enemy? Apparently it was because the lead in episode was about some species that never mattered kidnapping Janeway and the Doctor “thunder gunning” his way to save her. The whole ending left a sour taste in my mouth.
It was so bad, it tore the Borg queen to pieces.
You’d never guess from my review, but I did enjoy this show. Hell, I even thought Neelix had some redeeming moments and everyone hates him. There was just so much wrong. Apparently they were making like 4 “Star Trek” spinoffs at the same time and all of them suffered because of it. I wish they’d have rethought that and maybe just made 2 really good ones instead of 4 ok ones. Oh well, this made for some interesting time filler. Hopefully now I can get my girl to watch Dr. Katz with me. The only drawback there is no more Jeri Ryan.
This is not a seven of nine, this a ten of ten.
Credit goes to: Wikipedia.com, sidereel.com, google.com, and opguide.com.