Star Trek Voyager - The Complete Third Season

The third season of Star Trek: Voyager follows the crew of the USS Voyager on their continuing quest towards home. The season begins with the conclusion to the 2nd season finale Basics, featuring the Kazon. There is a a mid-season jaunt to late 20th century Earth and many other adventures along the way, including involvement in a civil war in the Q continuum. Other familiar aliens include the Vidiians, the Ferengi, . . . and the Borg. Good season with some interesting episodes and ideas to consider.

I followed this series on Television, but not too closely. Needless to say i found some of this series I had not ever seen. So far. I am throughly excited about the series and the character "Captain Katherine Janeway."

Great series. Pretty cheesy, but fun to watch. Not a huge star trek fan. I only got into it because I got sick and watched way too much tv and they re ran voyager pretty often. I enjoy it. Pretty safe for non-trekkies.

First, as I write this review this set costs $116.99 (note: since writing this review, the list price has dropped to $69.98 -- let's see if this price drops sticks -- it is still at least $10 too much, so that it could discount to the low $40s). What is Paramount thinking? Do they imagine that fans are so brain-blind that they will pay any amount of money for these DVDs? Honestly, I think any set of DVDs priced this high is immoral. It is a form of extortion: either you pay our utterly outrageous amounts of money in order to maximize our profits or do without your own copy of VOYAGER. Luckily, there is Netflix. I urge everyone NOT to buy this set. Force them to lower their prices to bring them in line with all the other TV series that are sold on DVD. There is no excuse for any set EVER to cost more than $44 after discount, with a single excuse. Some series set in the contemporary world use popular music. They have to pay outrageous amounts of money to use that music on the DVD box sets. (And the cost of some songs is what drives some to substitute music to keep the set affordable, as in the cast of NORTHERN EXPOSURE.) The cost of licensing is why we've never seen ALLY McBEAL on DVD. But with ST: VOYAGER there is no such excuse. No contemporary music. Instead, they are just gouging fans.

The first three seasons of STAR TREK: VOYAGER were disappointments. The premise of the series seemed to demand a serial format for the narrative, but instead they embraced an episodic format. The problem was that a vast number of the episodes were just horribly written. Luckily, in Season Four they would begin to become slightly more serial in structure, much to the improvement of the show. Also, although I very much liked Kes, trading her for Seven of Nine represented a gigantic improvement, for in doing so they gained arguably the most interesting character in the seven seasons the show enjoyed. But all this was yet to come.

To be honest, I had a lot of trouble working my way through this season. I had already had my fill of dreadful standalone episodes in the first two seasons and I was incredibly weary of the Kazons. And why were they Kazons even still on the series? After all, they were supposedly blazing their way across space at the fastest possible speed. I was continually bugged that the Kazons were still to be found (along with their absurd hair) and that Neelix still knew anything about the regions of space that they were passing through. Luckily, toward the end of the season they finally managed to break through to a new region of space. We kiss the Kazon goodbye and encounter entirely new realms.

One of the more enjoyable segments of the season was the pair of episodes involving a brief trip to 1990s America. I saw these episodes when they first came out but was unaware until I recently rewatched them that they guest starred Sarah Silverman. This brought a sense of fun to them that they would otherwise have lacked.

Still, this was another profoundly disappointing season as a show with a great premise, a good group of characters, and a solid budget frittered away all its potential. Luckily, Season Four would represent a sharp improvement, as it finally started becoming slightly more serial in content and they introduced an incredibly exciting character in the person of Seven of Nine.

The only season of Star Trek Voyager I have not seen is season 7 because it was yanked during season six off of the fox network, and I did not get the channel that picked it up. I think the original cast in its final whole season together represents the best work of the series. I think it was a mistake to get rid of Kes(Jennifer Lien) at the beginning of Season 4. I like the Seven of Nine character, but they could have just as easily gotten rid of Neelix. I think the Kes character was not only interesting but also just as pretty as any of the Star Trek women in any of the Star Trek series' ever made. There are absolutely no commentaries (audio or subtitled) on any of the episodes. The container like all Voyager containers is as cheap as can possibly be imagined. If it cost them more than $0.10 to make it I would be suprised. I have no idea why they could not do the same thing they did with the original series. Those containers are some of the best I have ever seen. Most good DVDs have commentary from the actors. I have no idea why they did not do that. I think Future's End(Part I and II), Scorpion, Unity, Flashback, and Warlord could possibly be some of the best shows of the entire series.