If space was the final frontier, the thinking behind Star Trek: Voyager goes, then a wholly-unexplored region of space must be the most final-est frontier of all.
That's why the crew of the eponymous starship end up trapped on the other side of existence from their home for the seven-year run of the third Star Trek series from the franchise's 1980s/1990s heyday, and although the franchise was beginning to look a little tired by this point, there was still a lot of juice left in those dilithium crystals when it counted.
Voyager took some important steps forward for Trek—not least of which was bringing a female captain onboard the mission—but it's not the most highly-regarded of Treks by fans. If that suspicion has kept you away from the show until now, then it's clearly time to take the plunge. Here's a how-to join the voyage for yourself.
Number of Seasons: 7 (172 episodes)
Time Requirements: Consider yourself exiled in the Delta Quadrant for the next three months, making your way back to civilization at a rate of two episodes per day (three on weekends).
Where to Get Your Fix: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, CBS.com
Best Character to Follow:
There's no way to get around it; the cast of Voyager are oddly off-putting souls who don't really get much chance to progress. Nonetheless, there are three options for characters to follow through the series: Firstly, Captain Katherine Janeway is the series' lead character, played by *Orange Is the New Black'*s Kate Mulgrew as the literal personification of "What if Katherine Hepburn was the captain of a starship?" There's also Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill), who starts as a somewhat bitter former traitor trying to work his way back into Starfleet society and ends up a valued part of the crew, which is pretty much what counts as a character arc in this show. Most importantly, there's the Doctor (Robert Picardo), an emergency hologram who—thanks to being left active far longer than he was ever intended to be—evolves into something far more than he'd ever anticipated. Sardonic, melodramatic, and ironically the most human member of the crew, he's definitely our pick for the character you should be using as your throughline for the series.
Seasons/Episodes You Can Skip:
Voyager is actually a relatively consistent series in terms of quality, especially compared with something like Star Trek: The Next Generation. The problem is the series as a whole is less exciting overall. As a result, it's not as if there are a number of episodes or seasons to avoid altogether; if you make it through the pilot and are into it, you're pretty much set for the long haul. With the exception of the following, of course.
Season 2: Episode 24, "Tuvix" On paper, the idea of an episode about a transporter accident that merges two characters likely seemed a great, thought-provoking idea. In practice, it's an awkward, embarrassing mess that fails to land any of the deeper points it so desperately wants to make.
Season 5: Episode 19, "The Fight" In a way, it's almost surprising that it took Voyager five years to put their Native American character through an embarrassing "vision quest" storyline, especially one that sees him going on a vision quest with aliens after being knocked out during a boxing match. And yet, wouldn't it have been better had they managed to never quite get around to this story? (Spoilers: Yes.)
Season 5: Episode 23, "11:59" It's clear that "11:59" was meant to be a "special episode" of the show, dealing with Janeway's ancestor and inspiration. But instead of showing that, hey, women can be important astronauts too, the episode instead detours into an awkward It's a Wonderful Life-esque morality play about big business crushing the little guy around the turn of the millennium, which... what?
Season 6: Episode 11, "Fair Haven" Proving once and for all that not all holodeck episodes can be winners—although Voyager has its fair share of fun ones—this episode manages to bore the audience into submission by showing the crew finding peace in a virtual playroom program. No, really.
Season 7: Episode 18, "Human Error" Of all *Voyager'*s weaknesses, none are larger than its writers' obsession with recovering Borg Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). As soon as she's introduced into the show, her presence starts to overwhelm events, with her reintegration into society being the basis for some embarrassingly unsubtle reprises of earlier "What Is Humanity?" storylines from other series featuring Spock, Data, and Odo. This seventh season episode, in which Seven deals with matters of the heart, is one of the worst.
Seasons/Episodes You Can't Skip:
Season 1: Episodes 1 and 2, "Caretaker" The pilot sets the stage for the series in a surprisingly speedy manner, while also unfolding a suitably Star Trek plot about first contact with an alien that's unlike anything the crew have ever encountered before. It's the best episode the show manages in the first couple of years, but it engenders enough goodwill to keep you watching for some time.
Season 2: Episode 21, "Deadlock" What if there were two Voyagers, with identical crews? Well, maybe not entirely identical, which is what provides this episode with much of its drama—especially with the way things end up. (No, no spoilers.)
Season 3: Episode 2, "Flashback" The episode's title should be a giveaway that this isn't going to be the usual episode, and it really isn't; celebrating *Star Trek'*s 30th anniversary, it features appearances by George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney from the original series as Tuvok remembers his time onboard Sulu's first command. Fan service? You bet, but it's particularly fun fan service, which is always allowed.
Season 3: Episodes 8 and 9, "Future's End" Parts I and II Time travel episodes are always fun, and this chance for Voyager to visit the late 20th century is no exception, especially when you add in Ed Begley Jr. as a former hippie that started the computer revolution with stolen future technology. More shows should make Ed Begley Jr. into the bad guy.
Season 3: Episode 25, "Worst Case Scenario" Reality and fantasy blur when a holodeck simulation gets out of hand, and the crew are faced with alternate (and less friendly) versions of themselves in an episode that finally embraces the social conflicts that the series sidestepped in its beginning. What happens when theoretically mortal enemies are forced to work together? Finally, fireworks.
Season 3: Episode 26 and Season 4: Episode 1, "Scorpion" Parts I and II The two-parter that spanned the show's third and fourth seasons reset a bunch of elements from the series, ditching one character and introducing Seven of Nine (sadly). As a two-parter, however, it's both frenetic and enjoyable, and definitely unmissable for those wanting to keep track of who's who in the larger scheme of things.
Season 4: Episodes 8 and 9, "Year of Hell" Parts I and II The title of this two-parter isn't kidding; everything that could go wrong for the crew of Voyager pretty much does, thanks to forces playing with the timestream for their own nefarious purposes. Wonderfully bleak in places, this might be the highlight of the entire series, and something that the show should've aspired to from that point onwards.
Season 5: Episode 6, "Timeless" The show's 100th episode doesn't just feature a welcome guest-star in LeVar Burton, reprising his Star Trek: The Next Generation role as Geordi LaForge, but it also offers more time-travel hijinks, as well as a hint that the way home wasn't as far away for the crew of Voyager as it might have seemed earlier.
Season 5: Episode 26 and Season 6: Episode 1, "Equinox" Parts I and II The fifth season finale (and subsequent follow-up) reveals that the Voyager wasn't the first Starfleet ship lost in the Delta Quadrant, with the fate of that crew serving as an uncomfortable sign of what might be lying ahead for the show's stars if they can't get home faster than they'd been planning.
Season 7: Episodes 25 and 26, "Endgame" The show's final episode opens with the Voyager crew back on Earth, only to suggest that maybe things hadn't gone as planned—and that Janeway wanted to change that. Yup, it's time for one last time-travel drama that also manages to bring a number of other plot threads to a surprisingly satisfying close, even if the episode itself has an impressively abrupt conclusion. (No, really; you'll understand what we mean when you get there.)
Why You Should Binge:
Voyager holds a strange place in the Star Trek franchise, being a series that simultaneously goes furthest in exploring the new frontiers that Star Trek should be visiting—they're on the other side of the universe, cut adrift from Starfleet!—while also feeling like the most conservative and safe of all the series to date. Despite that confusion, those that love Star Trek will find a lot to enjoy in Voyager, not least of which is the show's increasing weirdness in the third and fourth seasons as it starts to play with audience expectations and starts to do things that you just know aren't going to last. When Voyager played against its inherent safeness, fun things happened.
Best Scene— 'It's Time We Faced Reality':
At the end of the first half of "Year of Hell," the end is more nigh than it is at any other point in the series ... to the point where Janeway gives the order to abandon ship. Considering the show is named after the ship, it was a great cliffhanger that really left the viewer wonder what was going to happen next. (Never expecting what did actually happen next.)
The Takeaway:
Like the Next Generation episode that ended up informing so much of the show's second half, Star Trek: Voyager really is the best of both worlds, feeling as much like a series of missed opportunities as a great Star Trek show. But if you've made it through the three other series up to this point, you'll likely enjoy a lot of what's on offer here.
If You Liked Star Trek: Voyager You'll Love:
Both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are the most obvious suggestions for further viewing if you somehow haven't watched yet. Perhaps a more suitable companion would be Stargate: Universe, a short-lived series based around much the same premise as Voyager, albeit approached from a more realistic point of view, asking all the questions that Voyager didn't, like "What if you run out of food?" and "Wouldn't power be a problem after a while?"
