Is season 5 the best season for Voyager? Are all season 5s the best seasons?
by Ames
There’s just something about those middle seasons of any Star Trek series. The characters have all received enough development to feel real. The writers have found their footing. There are enough existing story arcs to draw from to create a really cohesive world. And the show hasn’t been going on long enough for the stories to get stale and the writers to run out of ideas. We saw it in season five of The Next Generation, which tied with season 6 for number of episodes represented in our overall tops from the series. I’d argue that season four is the best season of Deep Space Nine, with some of the best episodes of the series and really very few of the worst. And now that A Star to Steer Her By has finished our watch-through of season five of Voyager, I’m sensing a pattern. Sorry, Enterprise.
What do y’all think? Season fours versus season fives? We’ll have to wait to see if the pattern holds with any of the currently running series, but so far, I think my theory holds. We’ve constructed our typical season wrap top 5 / bottom 5 listicles, and this past season of Voyager just had too many good episodes to choose from. Check them all out below and listen to our chatter on this week’s podcast episode (discussion starts at 1:27:17) where you can hear some bonus episodes from guest star Carl of the BattleSpace Nine podcast!
[images © CBS/Paramount]
Top Three Episodes
There were a lot of contenders for top three this season, which speaks to the strength of the season overall, and our picks were way more spread out than usual. Interestingly (if you like random stats as much as I do), this is the first time we have seen no overlap in a list from Caitlin, a feat achieved before by Chris in both season 5s of TNG and DS9. Season 5s, amirite?
“Drone”: Ames
Borg on board! We’re still at the stage in the show when every Borg episode is a highlight in some way or another. And this One’s no different (emphasis on the One!). It may be a retread of “I, Borg,” but is that such a bad thing? Credit to our new friend from the Collective, born when some nanoprobes and a mobile emitter got busy in the transporter, for giving us all the feels.
“Thirty Days”: Caitlin
Tom is at his best when he’s a little bit rebellious. It was really good to see that streak of bad boy in him while also seeing how his character development over the seasons has made him a fighter for the little guy. We finally see what Torres finds so attractive in him. Mmm, so ethical. And any time we get to have a big old Prime Directive debate is going to be a good time.
“Bride of Chaotica”: Chris
Similar to something like an “Our Man Bashir” or a “Trials and Tribble-ations,” this episode tears out all the stops and just goes for broke. When Star Trek embraces its campy roots but also does something original with tropes, it’s pretty much bound to end up on Chris’s tops list. It was just too delightful watching Kate Mulgrew ham it up. Invaders! Invaders!
“Timeless”: Jake
This episode was this close to making our top time travel episodes list, but the phase variance was just slightly off. So I’m glad we get to sing its praises now because it’s another good use of the time travel motif: the premise is smart, Harry’s guilt is emotionally evocative, the crash on the ice planet somehow holds up, and this might be the most attractive we’ve found Garrett Wang yet!
“Counterpoint”: Caitlin
What’s better than a good double crossing in an episode? Perhaps a triple crossing? A quadruple crossing? We lost count of just how many crossings there were in “Counterpoint,” but we loved watching Janeway outscheme Kashyk. Devious Janeway is definitely best Janeway, and helping people who are persecuted is definitely a good taste to have in the mouth.
“Latent Image”: Chris
As you’ll see in a second with our tippy top pick of the season, we love a brutal ending, and seeing the Doctor have to deal with soul-crushing problems is spell-binding. We can empathize with how the more human emotions and flaws that he’s developed over the years can be considerably detrimental, but it’s that development that has made him such a remarkable character. Take that to the memory bank!
“Nothing Human”: Caitlin
One last one just from Caitlin’s list and it’s a good’un. “Nothing Human” is a fine allegory for Nazi experimentation and Crell Moset makes for a very compelling and thought-provoking equivalent to a Nazi doctor whose work could be considered beneficial despite the horrific ways in which it was achieved. It’s also a plus anytime we see Cardassians strutting their stuff on Trek, so there’s that too. Yum.
“Relativity”: Ames, Jake
I’m not shy about lauding this episode all over the place, such as in our time travel episodes discussion just last week! What more can I say about this mindfuck of a time travel episode that I haven’t already gushed? The paradoxes make your eyes cross just a little bit, but in a good way because the pacing is just spot on. And Jeri Ryan nails it, of course, and rocks a Starfleet sciences uniform like no one else.
“Course: Oblivion”: Ames, Chris, Jake
Get ready to be emotionally manipulated by an episode for a full forty-five minutes, and it feels so good! Once you come to realize the twist of this episode and the ending is inevitable, it’s like slow torture, except that’s our kink. The character doubles are just so compelling to watch because they effectively are our usual characters, with their same traits and motivations, just without the plot armor.
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Bottom Three Episodes
You’ll see a lot more overlap in our bottoms list, kinda like we had last season, mainly because there just weren’t that many bad’uns to go through. So here are just the couple that we mostly agreed should have been scrubbed from this season and from our eyes.
“Infinite Regress”: Ames
As fun as it is to watch Jeri Ryan play a whole bunch of personalities from people she’s assimilated (see our character possessions post!), it’s also a fairly thin story that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The actions of all the other personalities aren’t grounded by anything. And the mindmeld scene is just some exhausting sensory overload of chaos.
“Someone to Watch Over Me”: Caitlin
This episode may seem a lighter, fluffier story that you can generally enjoy on the whole (and I won’t be hearing anything bad about Scott Thompson!), but when you get down to it you’ve got to admit: it’s just Pygmalion. Almost beat for beat. It’s pretty lazy to just go all My Fair Lady on Seven, especially when she’s already such a good character that doesn’t need whatever fixing the doctor seems to think she needs.
“The Disease”: Ames, Chris, Jake
This is an episode that had too many plotlines to focus on and it bet on the wrong horse. While we were clawing at the television to learn more about the rebels on the generational ship, the writers were force feeding us a fairly bland romance and trying to convince us that there was some kind of conflict when really Kim and Tal were just a normal couple. Who is Janeway to lecture him on banging an alien?
“11:59”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake
Now an actually bad romance comes from Janeway’s ancestry in this episode that could have just been about how history isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be except for this meet cute that derailed the whole thing. Not only did Shannon and Henry have absolutely no chemistry, but also the character of Henry Janeway was just plain unlikeable in just about every way. Stop living in the past, episode!
“The Fight”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake
But the episode that we all agreed on from this season is one of the most notoriously bad. “The Fight” is the lowest rated Voyager episode on IMDB, and there is good reason why. The structure of flashbacks and dream sequences and random meetings with Chakotay’s insane grandfather is so convoluted it somehow manages to contradict itself constantly. This one was knocked out before it got in the ring.
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Is it all downhill from here? Seasons 6 and 7 have trended weaker in TNG and DS9, so keep listening along with our watch-through of Voyager to find out how the rest of the series fares! Make sure you’re subscribed over on SoundCloud or your favorite podcast app, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and shine up that plot armor: you’re gonna need it!
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There was more going on in The Disease than Janeway supposedly randomly being a hard ass. These aliens had rules. Contrary to popular belief, Janeway does try to honor the laws of other cultures per Starfleet regulations. Most of the time. Unless they piss her off.
But she had been working very hard to get into the good graces of these particular aliens in the hopes that they would then be allowed to learn from them about their generational space-faring, a situation Voyager may very well find itself in. Harry very nearly f*&ked it all up.
Janeway, on the heels of weeks of trying to charm her way into info from these aliens, listening to an ensign whine about how he's in love
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