Star Trek Voyager - The Complete Sixth Season

Though my favorite Trek will always be Deep Space Nine, followed by The Next Generation, I give Voyager a lot of credit for growing as a series. When it first started, I found it to be dreadful. It was only after the addition of Seven of Nine that the show became more focused, and the cast really started to gel. By the end of the series' run, I found it a very respectable show and an important part of the Star Trek universe.

Still, while the general quality of the episodes ranged from average to good, Voyager turned in two of the very best Star Trek episodes ever produced. The first is "Latent Image" in season 5, in which the very nature of the Doctor's sentience is debated. It's one of the finest hours of television I've ever seen, and in itself justifies the existence of Voyager. The other is the episode "Pathfinder," found here in season 6. Dwight Schultz reprises his TNG role as Reginald Barclay, he of awkward social skills, many phobias, and holosuite addiction. The episode focuses on Barclay's determination to establish communication with Voyager, a ship that, like himself, is far removed from comfort and "home." Whereas Barclay was an interesting character on TNG, here he is even more vital and emotionally moving as he struggles to aid the lost Voyager, and in so doing find a place for himself and a connection to other people. Even the minor characters shine in this episode - I could go on and on, but really you've just got to see it and experience it for yourself. (And stick around for the half-dozen or so episodes that follow it, as they do keep the ball rolling rather well, with some very well-crafted plots and intriguing premises.)

Voyager's final three seasons really were terrific, and "Pathfinder" represents the show at its best. I'd expect any Star Trek fan would be very happy to have this episode, and this stand-out season, as part of his or her collection.

Star Trek The Next Generation - The Complete Fifth Season

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All in all I found Season Six to be a disappointment following the previous two excellent seasons. On the upside they continued to infuse the show with serial elements. On the downside there were simply too many flat or uninteresting episodes. In general, the problem with the season is that the writing lost some of its edge.

For fans of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, this season is interesting for the very, very brief involvement in the show by Ron Moore, who is created with having written the first two stories of the season. Moore was, of course, a wunderkind who had joined ST:TNG at an absurdly young age and quickly became one of the most important writers on ST:TNG and ST:DS9. He also wrote the script for two of the ST movies (GENERATIONS and FIRST CONTACT), so his joining VOYAGER as one of the show's primary muses made sense. But Moore's vision conflicted with those already entrenched. For instance, he was bothered by the endless number of shuttles and felt that in a long journey across space Voyager should show more wear and tear and shortages of materiel, including shuttles. So after only two episodes he dropped out of the show. His next significant gig would be on ROSWELL (which had some major tie ins with the STAR TREK franchise, with Jonathan Frakes as one of the executive producers) and after that CARNIVALE. In his next project after CARNIVALE he would get his wish to depict a starship struggling with ongoing deprivation in BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, which in many ways could be construed as the anti-VOYAGER. Almost everything in BSG is the opposite of VOYAGER. It features projectile weapons instead of beam weapons. There are no "shields" and therefore you'll never hear Gaeta or Tigh or Helo say something along the lines of "Shields down to 64%." It has no aliens nor even different versions of humanoid species (leaving aside the Cylons). The political decisions are not idealistic (though arguably a far more politically liberal show than Voyager) but more akin to real politik, with expediency often trumping ideals or prime directives. Leaders are vastly more fallible on BSG than on VOYAGER. And BSG never, ever engages in the technobable that dominates every episode of VOYAGER. On almost every point, the two shows are opposites. You can tell this simply by looking at the ships, Voyager always pretty and pristine and Galactica looking worse for wear in every episode.

While increasingly unhappy with aspects of VOYAGER, there was still much in Season Six that I still found to enjoy. The Doctor became a more and more important character on the show. He, along with Seven of Nine, was my favorite character on the series. Although I often complain about many aspects of the ST franchise, the one area they often excelled at was developing characters that did extraordinary jobs of helping astute viewers explores issues surrounding what can count for personhood. The series clearly aligns itself with writers like Ray Kurzweil who believe in the almost limitless capacity for computers to gain something akin to geniune intelligence. At this point in the run of the series I generally found that two-thirds of the episodes that I enjoyed focused either on the Doctor or on Seven.

Again, not as good a season as the previous two, but still much better than the first three seasons of the show, which simply were not very interesting and generally failed to approach any potential the show had. Not great, but definitely worth watching for fans of previous seasons.

Star Trek Voyager - The Complete Sixth SeasonStar Trek Voyager - The Complete Seventh Season

Big fan of the series. I now have all 7 seasons. The extras are super and the quality is better than when I saw them when originally broadcasted.
Pricy, but well worth the expense if you are really a trekkie.

This is not the best season of Voyager like season 3 or 4, but it is still good. It is still Voyager. I think one distinct thing about this season is that they do more comedy. I think it is because the cast is very comfortable at this point and they have been together for a very long time. The worst thing about the DVDs is that there is no commentary, and the packaging is horrible. They might as well have taken the DVDs and put them in a typical envelope and mailed them to you as is. The worst episode by far is when Kes comes back. It is a complete character change and does not make any since if you watched the early seasons of Voyager. The best part of the season is the conclusion of Equinox from the prior season.