People told me that it was one of the weaker Trek shows and...yeah it is, but I think of it as a case of praising it with faint damnation. Its biggest crime is that its not as good as TOS, TNG, and DS9, which in of itself is not a sin worthy of disregarding it. And considering it was the third Star Trek show to be produced in the 90s, its probably the one that suffered the most from burnout (Enterprise is my next viewing and I'm interested to see if that intensifies) but it still manages to be a solid show overall.
To compare Voyager to the modern Trek (the little I've seen of Discovery and the one episode I've seen of Picard), I can say that Voyager, at the very least, feels like Star Trek. The language, the tone, the pacing, and the look of it...it all feels like it belongs in the Trek universe and belongs with the other shows. I can understand why it has its fans too because, hey, it doesn't break Star Trek to pieces like we're seeing nowadays. And hey, its very premise is great and classic Star Trek as it takes the whole space exploration idea to the nth degree by putting the ship in the completely uncharted territory of the Delta Quadrant.
There are some great ideas for stories that were explored here. The Tuvix episode, the Workforce two parter, the finale Endgame (MCU ripped off Star Trek, CONFIRMED), and the various 7 of 9 and Doctor centric episodes were all highly enjoyable. There were the occasional duds (That episode where Janeway and Paris evolved into salamanders and procreated is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've seen in all of Star Trek) but I enjoyed way more than I disliked.
Where the show suffers in comparison to other Star Trek shows is that alot of it does feel derivative of what has already been done. To highlight what I'm talking about, TNG and DS9 managed to separate themselves from the pack by expanding on the Star Trek mythos in significant ways to give their own shows their own identity. For example, TNG introduced Q, The Borg, Data & Lore (and the whole concept of androids), The Ferengi, and made allies out of TOS enemies, the Klingons. DS9 took it further by expanding on previous existing enemies, the Kardassians and the Ferengi, and creating 3 dimensional characters from those races, expanding on the Kardassian/Bajoran conflict and creating the Maquis, while also introducing a new threat like The Dominion and all the various threats within that alliance.
Voyager...doesn't really do that as much and its odd because they had the premise to greatly expand on Star Trek, but very few of the new alien races and threats really caught on, and they found themselves relying on older ideas like The Borg and Q. And while it is cool to see those things, every time they show up (Especially Q), it makes me feel like I"m watching lost scripts from TNG being played out. And most of the new enemies didn't really stick out in the same way that previous new entities did, at least not for me. Sadly this "Been there, done that" feel carries over to some of the characters as well.
As I've said before, Tim Russ did an AMAZING job at playing a Vulcan, something that few other actors beyond Nimoy can really nail down. I truly believed that this dude was a Vulcan through and through. Despite that, any focus on him just makes me feel like I'm watching Spock again.
Then you have Torres, who really does just feel like Worf again. You have Neelix, who feels like a much nicer version of Quark, and by being so sweet and nice, he comes across as more annoying than anything else (Though to be fair, I did like how his departure was handled).
And the characters that don't feel derivative, a lot of them are uninteresting. The whole Starfleet/Maquis mixed crew angle is interesting, but they reference it so infrequently that at times I forgot about it. Chakotay is, sadly, a bore. He's just a straight laced commander, which is weird considering he's supposed to be the head of the rebel group. Harry Kim is supposed to be the young ensign that evolves over time into someone that can take command, but he feels stagnant during most of his time on the show. And then there's Kes...like I said earlier, once she was gone, I didn't miss her. It hurts that she's paired up with Neelix, another super nice character, so you had these two sweet as sunshine characters hanging around and it became easier to dismiss her. And the last episode where she came back was so poorly written, it made me hope to God she would never come back (thankfully, she did not). I did kind of like Tom Paris as giving him a love of 20th Century Earth made him kind of endearing, but he's not a strong enough character to lead the cast.
And then there is Janeway...who is the hardest character to really give my thoughts on. Kate Mulgrew gives an admirable performance and she is a believable authority figure as the captain. I never doubted that she was in command of the ship and its crew. However, the writing seemed to struggle with her at times. Sometimes she felt too much like Picard, and other times, she made downright awful decisions that made her look like an authoritarian nut. In the end, it felt like she was whatever the story needed her to be, which made it harder to connect with her the way I did with Kirk, Picard, and Sisko. But by the same token, I did feel like she really cared about the people on her crew and had their best interest at heart.
Where Voyager's cast shines is in The Doctor and 7 of 9, easily the two best characters of the show. And even The Doctor invites comparisons to Data and Bones, but he's played so well with so much charm that its hard not to love the guy. He's entertaining, flawed, funny, and competent, and always a joy to focus on. And Seven MASSIVELY improved the show upon her arrival. Not only due to Jeri Ryan's performance, but like I said, it was one of those ideas I talked about earlier where an enemy of Star Fleet (The Borg) can not become a major ally. Granted, we had Hugh earlier in TNG, but he was never a main cast member, and we got to see Seven's full development over the course of the 2nd half of Voyager's run, and she brought a breath of fresh air as both a character and for the writing.
So to sum it up, I think that Voyager is a worthy addition to Star Trek and not worth dismissing as some have told me to do in the past. It has its flaws and like I said, was probably a victim of ST burnout, but the effort is admirable all the same. I don't regret watching it, and that counts for something.
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