Jornada nas Estrelas: Voyager

The universe of Star Trek has done something brilliant to keep alive. The creators have imposed a story arch for all the series starting with DS9. Don't get me wrong. TNG was what got me into Star Trek in the first place. It had vibrant characters, unique ideas, and was the building block for setting the stage for the other series and the later movies. However, in all it's glory, it lacked something. Continuity. The longest the crew of the Enterprise D would have to deal with an immediate situation, was no more than 2 episodes. No doubt things would reoccur, but it was seldom. Voyager, however, would have numerous back to back episodes dealing with something. And that might even resurface somewhere down the line.

I can't understand what people dislike so much about this show. They explored so much more than any of the others. Not just in the unverse, but with the crew. They all grew. Some more than others, but you can't go 7 years and not show growth in a character. And as with every other Star Trek, it was rough at first, but it gets so much better once the writers and the actors have about a year or two to get it right.

I truely believe that if people give it a chance and don't jump on the bandwagon, they'd like it. It's easy to say you don't like something if you've never really given it a chance.

I have a particularly strong attachment to this show and can honestly say it is my favorite in the whole Star Trek universe. I started to watch it from day one all the way to the end even though it took a while for the series to fully realize its potential. The first 3 seasons were good but nowhere near as great as the show would become later yet I hung on, hopeful that something better would come along and then boom, Seven of Nine appeared.

The show only started to become really wonderful when Jeri Ryan was added to the show with Scorpions at the end of the 3rd season as the cliffhanger for season 4. Somehow, I really connected with this particular character and from then on, they could do no wrong or at least, they could always count on my loyalty to watch. Sure the writing is uneven in places and some episodes are not as great as others but it's true for any series.

I have to say that the number one reason why I connected so strongly with this series is this particular set of characters. Somehow, it all gelled so well and even though I have favorites of course like Seven, The Doctor and Janeway, they all had something interesting to add to the mix and the chemistry always worked for me, even in sub par episodes. But thankfully, even the lowest rated episodes have something interesting to offer.

I was particularly satisfied with how the series ended, the perfect conclusion to one heck of a journey and I still miss it to this day even though I can always watch to my heart's content any time I feel like it. This is connected with a great time in my life and I will always remember if fondly.

A strong 9 stars is well deserved and the 1 star is deducted from the perfect score only because the writing is sometimes not as strong as it should be, especially with episodes not connected to the Borg or Seven of Nine. But still, every single show has something to offer and this series remain one of the very best I had the pleasure of experiencing as it ran for 7 successful seasons and I could not recommend it enough.

Contrary to what many Trek nerds would have you believe, Voyager is not the worst Star Trek series, and is not at all a bad show. The acting is superior to that on the beloved The Next Generation (that comment alone will probably have people throwing their Spock ears at their monitors), and I think many of the stories were better. TNG stories always seemed to revolve around spacial anomalies and holodeck malfunctions, which became excruciatingly boring. I wasn't interested in seeing Picard dressed up like Sherlock Holmes and trying to solve a fake mystery, only to be trapped on the holodeck and have the safety mechanisms shut off. As many times as this happened, I would have shut the silly thing down and prohibited its use.

Voyager was so great because it truly put its protagonists into a situation that they could not extricate themselves from. For the first time since the original 1960's series, Star Trek characters truly went where nobody had gone before, discovering new races and acquiring knowledge. And they couldn't call on the federation to save them.

And no doctor has ever been as good in his role as Robert Picardo. That even includes DeForest Kelly, who was exceptional.

Jennifer Lien was also outstanding as Kes, who was very much missed after her departure from the series.

Voyager brought back a lot of the adventure that was inherent in the first Star Trek series, and was lost in TNG. Perhaps it didn't live up to its enormous potential, but it was still a very good series that is, unfortunately, far to often the target of hate by TNG purists and people who like to pick at microscopic details.

It is the third masterpiece in the Star Trek series and without thinking too much! Yes it had some parts where the "Borgs" presented as a way to weak fraction but if we compare all other parts it is still one of the best Star Trek series.

Voyager, though different in many ways than other Star Trek series, is nonetheless a great chapter in the Star Trek saga. The characters are well developed, and the unusual situation allows for a creative array of episodes.

In the first few seasons, it is obvious that the actors (and directors) are still getting used to the characters they are trying to create. As such, the first season or two is a little chaotic, though there are underlying personal and situational themes. Regardless, the early season are most definitely enjoyable, and provide a good foundation for the seasons that follow.

Once the show gets underway, however, the characters are given more shape and depth, and the acting/directing vastly improves. The shows focus on a variety of subjects - interpersonal relationships among the crew, individual moral and spiritual issues, scientific anomalies, and time travel, as well as many other things. Both new and previously used aliens appear in the series, so while there are unfamiliar species (such as the Kazon), there are also ties to the original Star Trek villains.

I highly recommend seasons two and four - they stand out as two of the best.

Star Trek: Voyager, with its unique cast of characters and unusual mission, is a new way to explore the "final frontier".