I tried.
I tried to like Voyager, tried to plow through, to soldier on, to survive the endurance test of a Trek series which is seemingly obsessed with punishing its own characters, in undermining the franchise's previously established values of hope... and progress... and wonder. For a whole year I watched the show trying to fall in love with it like I did The Original Series or The Next Generation, but no luck. And now I have to step away.
You can take a look at my other reviews: I wrote summaries for more than 50 episodes of this show. I loved TOS, loved TNG, I love everything about Star Trek and what it represents, but Voyager is a show in which the writers and creators have no respect or feeling for the principles of the franchise. They don't even like their characters: the crew of the ship is tortured and tested to no end and without purpose, like crash-test dummies in a psychotic fun house. Impotent sociopath and Executive Producer Brannon Braga surely shoulders the bulk of the blame here: he seemed to enjoy mocking Trek and distancing himself from the show... I believe he was so intimidated by Star Trek's power and scope that he set out to single-handedly destroy the series from the inside. With Voyager he succeeded, but he was surely not alone.
As I pushed myself into Voyager's fourth season I had only to look at the episode titles to see where the show was headed: Revulsion, Demon, The Killing Game, Mortal Coil, and Year Of Hell (Parts I & II). Whatever happened to "Where No Man Has Gone Before" & "City At The Edge Of Forever?" Star Trek was always about the examination of human nature, celebrating man's potential for evolution and enlightenment, yet Voyager is preoccupied with maiming, mutilating, terrorizing and destroying the show's protagonists: not an episode goes by without at least one horrific, traumatic, nightmarish humiliation or degradation. I can serve on this ship no longer.
It's not like I'm afraid of the dark- I love downbeat, unhappy endings and all kind of alternative views, but this show is stuck in the primordial ooze of Original Sin: these characters were cursed upon creation and are doomed to a life of misery. Why? Because the writers were out of original ideas? Because they were afraid to be positive or too lazy to find the good in even the worst scenarios? "Year of Hell" was the final nail in the coffin for me as the episode features our heroes- already stranded and adrift in the vast black of endless space- forced to endure a year's worth of defeat and humiliation as their ship is destroyed piece by piece before finally surrendering and abandoning ship. Why? There's no fun in this story, no sense of adventure... just a sadistic satisfaction in watching these people suffer. That's no satisfaction to me.
Then of course there's the wildly-uneven plot lines: some weeks the crew was obsessed with getting home, willing to sacrifice all else in order to shave two weeks off their trip. Other weeks the show was a fuzzy romantic soap-opera, with characters hooking up and developing relationships. Still other episodes were big-budget F/X-driven action blockbusters, and every now and then the writers would yield to the franchise and try to write an episode in the classic Trek tradition of discovery and adventure. None of it gelled or formed a cohesive tone, and gaps in character and story were glossed over with jaw-breaking techno-babble too absurd to repeat here.
Wasted in this mess is the great Kate Mulgrew, a powerful Captain and richly-talented actress. Also wasted is Tim Russ as Tuvok, a fascinating Vulcan who is completely under-used. And then there's the over-used Robert Picardo as Doctor. What could have been a funny & original character in small doses becomes an ever-present shrew, bitching & chirping when no words are needed. I started off Loving him and liked him less and less with every episode. The producers tried to focus on the luscious heinie of Jeri Ryan in the hopes that the audience would forget her inability to emote. No ass can make up for a performance that wooden. And let's not forget the writers' abusive, negligent treatment of the Kes character before unceremoniously dumping her at the end of Season Three. A shame.
I simply cannot watch another episode of this show, so I guess I'll never know whether or not the crew finds their way home. The sad part is: I don't care. If the show's writers and creators can't find any reason to care about these characters and their story lines how can the audience? Your guess is as good as mine.
Voyager's journey home could have been- should have been- a proud Trek adventure, testing the ideals of Starfleet in a distant part of the galaxy, balancing the ship's quest for survival with the discovery of new life and new civilizations. Instead its worst enemy were the show's writers, who never showed any sympathy for their own heroes. A tragedy.
GRADE: C-
I tried to like Voyager, tried to plow through, to soldier on, to survive the endurance test of a Trek series which is seemingly obsessed with punishing its own characters, in undermining the franchise's previously established values of hope... and progress... and wonder. For a whole year I watched the show trying to fall in love with it like I did The Original Series or The Next Generation, but no luck. And now I have to step away.
You can take a look at my other reviews: I wrote summaries for more than 50 episodes of this show. I loved TOS, loved TNG, I love everything about Star Trek and what it represents, but Voyager is a show in which the writers and creators have no respect or feeling for the principles of the franchise. They don't even like their characters: the crew of the ship is tortured and tested to no end and without purpose, like crash-test dummies in a psychotic fun house. Impotent sociopath and Executive Producer Brannon Braga surely shoulders the bulk of the blame here: he seemed to enjoy mocking Trek and distancing himself from the show... I believe he was so intimidated by Star Trek's power and scope that he set out to single-handedly destroy the series from the inside. With Voyager he succeeded, but he was surely not alone.
As I pushed myself into Voyager's fourth season I had only to look at the episode titles to see where the show was headed: Revulsion, Demon, The Killing Game, Mortal Coil, and Year Of Hell (Parts I & II). Whatever happened to "Where No Man Has Gone Before" & "City At The Edge Of Forever?" Star Trek was always about the examination of human nature, celebrating man's potential for evolution and enlightenment, yet Voyager is preoccupied with maiming, mutilating, terrorizing and destroying the show's protagonists: not an episode goes by without at least one horrific, traumatic, nightmarish humiliation or degradation. I can serve on this ship no longer.
It's not like I'm afraid of the dark- I love downbeat, unhappy endings and all kind of alternative views, but this show is stuck in the primordial ooze of Original Sin: these characters were cursed upon creation and are doomed to a life of misery. Why? Because the writers were out of original ideas? Because they were afraid to be positive or too lazy to find the good in even the worst scenarios? "Year of Hell" was the final nail in the coffin for me as the episode features our heroes- already stranded and adrift in the vast black of endless space- forced to endure a year's worth of defeat and humiliation as their ship is destroyed piece by piece before finally surrendering and abandoning ship. Why? There's no fun in this story, no sense of adventure... just a sadistic satisfaction in watching these people suffer. That's no satisfaction to me.
Then of course there's the wildly-uneven plot lines: some weeks the crew was obsessed with getting home, willing to sacrifice all else in order to shave two weeks off their trip. Other weeks the show was a fuzzy romantic soap-opera, with characters hooking up and developing relationships. Still other episodes were big-budget F/X-driven action blockbusters, and every now and then the writers would yield to the franchise and try to write an episode in the classic Trek tradition of discovery and adventure. None of it gelled or formed a cohesive tone, and gaps in character and story were glossed over with jaw-breaking techno-babble too absurd to repeat here.
Wasted in this mess is the great Kate Mulgrew, a powerful Captain and richly-talented actress. Also wasted is Tim Russ as Tuvok, a fascinating Vulcan who is completely under-used. And then there's the over-used Robert Picardo as Doctor. What could have been a funny & original character in small doses becomes an ever-present shrew, bitching & chirping when no words are needed. I started off Loving him and liked him less and less with every episode. The producers tried to focus on the luscious heinie of Jeri Ryan in the hopes that the audience would forget her inability to emote. No ass can make up for a performance that wooden. And let's not forget the writers' abusive, negligent treatment of the Kes character before unceremoniously dumping her at the end of Season Three. A shame.
I simply cannot watch another episode of this show, so I guess I'll never know whether or not the crew finds their way home. The sad part is: I don't care. If the show's writers and creators can't find any reason to care about these characters and their story lines how can the audience? Your guess is as good as mine.
Voyager's journey home could have been- should have been- a proud Trek adventure, testing the ideals of Starfleet in a distant part of the galaxy, balancing the ship's quest for survival with the discovery of new life and new civilizations. Instead its worst enemy were the show's writers, who never showed any sympathy for their own heroes. A tragedy.
GRADE: C-