Star Trek VOY Season 1 - Top 5 Favorite Episodes ~ Bookish Whimsy

Okay, why did I not know that ST:VOY is like Gilligan's Island in space! Although I hope they will get back to the alpha quadrant by the end of the series! And I hope they manage to stay away from the pitfalls of doing a show like this - with a bunch of episodes that present opportunities for the ship to jump light-years ahead, but their plans are always foiled in the end. It will get very monotonous, and the suspense will start to peter out.

My first impression of this series was Captain Janeway is awesome!! This is when I knew I would love her character - there's a scene in the episode "Time and Again" where Janeway is told she has to do what these terrorists want, or they will shoot a child and, after a moment to think, she steps up to the guard and directly gives away the terrorists. In front of them! Boss. And what a difficult situation to be in! It was a little surprising to see her take the situation that was for the greater good too. But the child was ok of course. I also love that we are back to an adventure an episode kind of format too - this series is noticeably lighter than Deep Space Nine, so now I understand why they had both shows kind of running con-currently. They are such different shows!

I'm still getting used to this crew but there are a few things I'm really happy about with them:

There's another Vulcan main character!
Tom Paris - nice to see an actor from a TNG episode join the Star Trek family as the main cast
Harry Kim - I just love his character, he's sweet, and a good character for the viewer to connect to vicariously if you wanted to imagine yourself as a member of the crew.

5. Heroes and Demons

The holographic Doctor is the only one who can go into the rogue holodeck and bring back the crew members who have 'disappeared'. I'm liking this tendency (so far) of Voyager to explore literary stories and this Beowulf take-off was fun to see on a scifi show. And it was fun to see the show play around with the concept of having a main character who is a holo-character and what sort of limitations and ramifications it has. For me, the storyline of the entity that took over the ship was a subordinate to the enjoyment of the elements that made up the story.

4. Time and Again

While investigating a tragic explosion that killed all of the inhabitants of a planet, Janeway and Tom are caught up in a temporal anomaly and sent back a day in the past to just before the explosion. The Prime Directive comes into play here (as it does in my next favorite episode) as Janeway tries to stay true to it by not warning the people of the impending disaster. But there is a brilliant twist to that in this episode that I felt was a great shade of gray for the consequences of adhering to the prime directive so completely. And Janeway just continues to impress me with her every episode - she's such a great, strong character!

3. Prime Factors

The Voyager crew is cordially invited to relax on a pleasure planet and discover the planet has technology that could get them home much faster. Except the people on the planet are not willing to share the technology with them. I absolutely LOVED the idea of a Star Trek episode that puts the Trek crew on the other side of the Prime Directive dilemma. The Prime Directive sucks sometimes and it was very interesting to see how humans struggled with it. And also completely believable that they couldn't deal with it very well. But it was surprisingly heartbreaking to have to see Captain Janeway deal with the insubordination of her crew, when she expects so much of them and respects them so much as well.

2. Post Ex Facto

Tom Paris is convicted of murder on a planet that can 'see' the last images a murdered victim sees which is how they can prove the guilt or innocence of a suspect. The punishment for a murderer is to relive the event every day by having that last memory of the victim implanted in their brain. Kind of a brilliant punishment, although I would think the horror of it would wear off eventually. Unless the murderer is forced to feel the pain or fear of their victim as well - not just see what they saw. Anyways, this episode reminded me a lot of The Next Generation episode "A Matter of Perspective" because the suave, flirty characters from both shows are accused of murdering a man because of their feelings for his wife. In both cases I don't think either of the characters come off in the best light, but of course they are not guilty of murder, so it was fun to see how the murders are solved. And Tuvok here makes a great detective!

1. Cathexis

Energy beings displace Chakotay from his body, rendering him brain dead. While the crew try to figure out a way to reverse the damage, they realize the energy being is able to control a person to do what it wants. FIRST, let me mention the beginning of this episode with Janeway's "Jane Eyre-esqe" holodeck program. WHAT IS HAPPENING ALL MY FAVORITE THINGS TOGETHER!! Yes, there is also a Rebecca/Turning of the Shrew influence to the holonovel, but whatever Lord Burleigh is hiding upstairs brings this absolutely into 'Jane Eyre' territory. YAY. The joy I felt watching this unfold was unlimited, and pretty much this could have been a Ferengi episode and I would have had fond feelings for it. I'm glad it was also a great episode though! (I feel it's important to say that I did not make this number 1 just because of Janeway's holonovel!) The suspense of not knowing who was being taken over, and the possibility that anyone could be, made for a pretty nerve-wracking finale. I don't want to give away too much about the resolution, but I really enjoyed how it all played out!