A Unified Theory of Star Trek: Voyager, Part 1
Lo those many years ago, Cohost poster "Sullivan" created a skip guide for Star Trek: Voyager which I know was popular with many chosters who opted to watch that most final of 90s Trek shows.
I had totally forgotten about that guide when I started my own journey of watching through Voyager. However, having now watched Voyager (well, through most of season 6, anyway) I now find myself going back to that post and disagreeing strenuously!
Therefore, the only option is to put out a different watch guide.
My Unified Theory of Star Trek: Voyager is thus: VOY is primarily a show running away from itself. TNG can meander around the alpha quadrant as it pleases; DS9 has a fixed setting. VOY is on a one-direction journey back home, and therefore it is constantly abandoning the things that it encounters on that journey. But even more so, VOY is the anti-DS9 in that it actively does not want to depict its own setting and characters.
So many Voyager episodes take place wholly or partially in alternate realities, holodeck programs, not on the USS Voyager at all, and so on. Those that don't are instead busily introducing setting elements that will not recur on the show because the USS Voyager is running away from them at high warp.
The goal of VOY's writers seemed to be: How can we avoid writing an episode of Voyager? Failing that, how can we make sure our episode is completely disconnected from anything that comes before it or after it?
The grand irony of VOY is that it is the first Star Trek show made specifically for Paramount's shiny new cable network UPN, and yet they wrote it like it was a direct to syndication show that people were going to watch out of order, upside down and backwards.
VOY is one of those works of art that transcends notions of "good" or "bad". Some of the best episodes of Voyager are also some of the worst ever episodes of Star Trek. As such, I am applying a rating system based on random emoji.
- The Must-Watch Mango (🥭) is applied to episodes of Voyager that must be watched. Maybe they're very good; maybe they're just central to the show's overall paratextual mythos (Like the season 6 outing Tsunkatse, which is an infamous tie-in with WWE); maybe they are one of the few episodes of Voyager that come up later somehow and/or come up in the Delta Rising expansion to Star Trek Online.
- The Ogre of Madness (👹) is applied to episodes of Voyager that are insane. Those are often the very best episodes of Voyager.
- The Leaf on the Wind of Running Away (🍃) is applied to episodes of Voyager that conform to the "running away from itself" theme; they take place in alternate timelines, dreams, holodeck simulations, or don't feature the crew of the Voyager at all.
- A special sub-category is the Wasteful Hourglass (⏳), applied to episodes that take place in aborted timelines. These are the most skippable episodes of Voyager in the sense that they literally didn't happen at all.
- The Melting Man (🫠) is applied to episodes featuring plot elements that seem like they could be reused or reapplied, but never recur.
- The Stupid Hat (🎩) is applied to episodes featuring Stupid Hat Societies – alien cultures whose entire Deal is fundamentally stupid. This is a major recurring theme in VOY.
If an episode is listed without comment or emoji, you can take that to mean that it's unmemorable and not important, therefore skippable.
This is part 1 of the guide, which covers seasons 1 and 2 of the show.
Season 1
- 1/2: "Caretaker" 🥭. It's not a good pilot, but what are we doing here if you're not going to watch the episode that explains how Voyager got stranded in the Delta Quadrant.
- 3: "Parallax". This episode exists almost as an exemplar of what a typical Voyager episode is supposed to be like; the crew of the Voyager encounter a strange space anomaly, it endangers them, they escape through Teamwork and Resolving Their Differences. Notably, the anomaly here is also a time anomaly, beginning Voyager's deranged love affair with time travel.
- 4: "Time and Again". Right, the first two non-pilot episodes of Voyager are both about time travel. This is what this show is.
- 5: "Phage" 🥭. Introduces the Viidians, one of Voyager's "recurring" villains (in that they recur a couple of times then are never heard frmo again).
- 6: "Cloud"
- 7: "Eye of a Needle" 🥭🫠 Every time some familiar Star Trek element from the Alpha Quadrant shows up on this show it's like water in the fucking desert. This (pretty good) episode features Vaughn Armstrong, a character actor who's played something in basically every Trek series, playing a Romulan. This is pretty much the first actually good episode of VOY.
- 8: "Ex Post Facto" 👹🎩 This is just like the Wesley Crusher Gets the Death Penalty episode of TNG except instead of stepping on flowers it's fucking some guy's wife
- 9: "Emanations" 🎩
- 10: "Prime Factors" 🎩 The first of many episodes that dangle the possibility of going home faster in front of Voyager, only to then yank it away.
- 11: "State of Flux" 🥭 The first episode of the Seska arc, which is probably the most extensive story arc in the first half of Voyager's run.
- 12: "Heroes and Demons" 🥭 The first holodeck episode of the show; this one doesn't get a leaf because it's actually an important beat in the Doctor's character development. The mango is actually because the sword of Beowulf from this episode's holodeck adventure is now an item you can get in Star Trek Online, therefore this is essential continuity.
- 13: "Cathexis"
- 14: "Faces" Inessential and not quite insane, but pleasantly goofy outing mainly featuring B'Ellana.
- 15: "Jetrel" 🥭 One of many episodes that teases the possibility of killing off Neelix. Extremely begrudging mango as this episode actually is essential to Neelix' character.
- 16: "Learning Curve" Technically the ultimate cause of the ship malfunctions in this episode does reoccur 20 years later in Lower Decks, but I refuse to give a mango to cheese.
Season 2
- 1: "The 37's" 🫠 One of many Voyager episodes that tease the possibility of adding new members to the crew.
- 2: "Initiations" Inessential, but features Aron Eisenberg (Deep Space 9's Nog) playing a quite compelling character.
- 3: "Projections" 🍃 Bad like all Barkley episodes of Star Trek.
- 4: "Elogium" 👹 Not one of the deranged episodes of Voyager that is also one of the best episodes of Voyager.
- 5: "Non Sequitur" 🍃⏳ The first of many episodes of Voyager that straight up did not happen.
- 6: "Twisted" The ship is wobbly.
- 7: "Parturition"
- 8: "Persistence of Vision" 👹 Inessential, but one of the classic Voyager-as-horror-show episodes.
- 9: "Tattoo" - Possibly the least redeemable episode of the show; it takes Chakotay's already ill-conceived nonspecific Native American background and takes it in an unpleasant Ancient Aliens direction.
- 10: "Cold Fire" 🎩 - The "Elder Ocampa" encountered here are another minor recurring theme in Voyager, the aliens in stupid hats who are smug and superior towards the Voyager crew.
- 11: "Maneuvers" 🥭👹 - Seska returns, which makes this a bright spot in an otherwise pretty forgettable season.
- 12: "Resistance" 🥭 - This would be a pretty pedestrian episode if not for Joel Grey, an actor best known for his theater work and for playing the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret, a role that got him both an Oscar and a Tony. Here he gives an incredibly layered performance.
- 13: "Prototype" 🎩 - Only notable in that this has some of the hokiest creature effects in all of Star Trek, including TOS.
- 14: "Alliances" 🫠 - This is technically part of the Kazon/Seska arc, but is pretty inessential. It gestures at the idea of the Delta Quadrant as this shifting landscape of alliances and enmities, lacking big centralizing powers like the Klingons or the Federation; but the show never pays this off at all.
- 15: "Threshold" 🥭👹 - Here it is; "Threshold" has been named by many as the worst Star Trek episode of all time. For my money it is one of the best Voyager episodes. An absolute must-watch.
- 16: "Meld" 🥭 - The introduction of Lon Suder (played by the great Brad Dourif), one of the best-ever guest star characters in VOY. Also the start of another recurring motif in Voyager: Tuvok just fucking loves to mind meld.
- 17: "Dreadnought"
- 18: "Death Wish" 🥭 - This is a Q episode, with all that entails, but for once John the Lancie is upstaged by an even more insane Q ("Quinn"), played by Gerrit Graham with a fascinating mix of tenderness, sadness, and typical Q madness.
- 19: "Lifesigns" - Inessential, but a nice Doctor episode, and another Viidian episode. Also contains more of the ongoing Seska plot.
- 20: "Investigations" - Another installment of the Seska arc. I'd suggest watching both this and Lifesigns if you're invested in that at all.
- 21: "Deadlock" 🥭 - Not quite a show-running-away-from-itself episode, but definitely in that ballpark. A begrudgingly essential episode because it features the birth of Naomi Wildman, the baby born aboard Voyager who will become an important character several seasons down the line. Also, the Harry Kim subplot of this episode gets paid off 20 years later on Star Trek Online.
- 22: "Innocence" - Inessential but quite fun; Tuvok having to babysit a bunch of children.
- 23: "The Thaw" 🥭👹 - Possibly the best episode of Voyager. I know it doesn't look like it, but trust me on this one.
- 24: "Tuvix" 🥭👹 - Not a great episode by any means but an episode that is central to Voyager's paratextual mythos; the entire idea of Janeway as a hardass loose cannon with evil tendencies... well it's well supported by many episodes of this show but is often traced back to this one.
- 25: "Resolutions" - One of a few episodes teasing the possibility of a Janeway/Chakotay ship, a terrible idea the show will later ditch.
- 26: "Basics, Part I" 🥭 This two-parter split across seasons is the effective conclusion of both Lon Suder and Seska's arc, and essentially the end of Voyager's brief flirtation with being a serialized show.