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 - Ends on a High NoteAfter a few seasons of letdowns, Voyager finished itself on a high. The finale, Endgame, is perhaps the greatest episode of the show's history and others such as Work Force really captured what Trek was all about. My only complaint would have to be the final scene...would have been nice to see Voyager getting home a bit earlier, but then again maybe it is best if we are left to use our imaginations. In any event, it was nice to see the REAL Borg Queen (Goddess Alice Krige) back in outstanding form! Rating: - WELCOME HOME!If not just to complete your set, the Seventh Season of STAR TREK: VOYAGER stands alone as the only one of the series to have really brough the villainy of the Borg to the fore front. Undeniably the Bord are among the greatest adversaries in the Trek Universe and once pitted against the likes of Starfleet legend Captain Kathyrn Janeay and her crew, you can expect the final season to deliver all the way till "Endgame". Rating:  - Voyager Comes Home to the Alpha Quadrant to End the SeriesMany television series don't last for a single season, some may only last one or two years, but some may become highly successful and have as many as seven seasons. However, as is quite often the case, a series' seventh season is typically its final season giving its actors one last curtain call to rap up loose ends and say farewell to their loyal audience. Such was the case for the highly successful television series "Star Trek Voyager", which aired between 1995 and 2001. Based upon the original "Star Trek" universe concept created by the legendary Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991) in the 1960's, "Star Trek Voyager" was the fourth television series to take its audience "where no man had gone before", and began only one year after the highly successful second "Star Trek" series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation", closed with its seventh season. For its efforts, a total of 172 episodes of "Star Trek Voyager" were filmed and aired, with all but the first season having 26 episodes. The initial first season only had 16 episodes, but was a good start for what ultimately became a fine sci-fi television series thanks to the efforts of Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor. What made "Star Trek Voyager" unique from its three predecessors was its placement within the "Star Trek" universe. The previous three series took place primarily in what is referred to as the Alpha Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy. Contained within the Alpha Quadrant are the familiar United Federation of Planets guarded by Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, the Cardassians and several other alien races very familiar to "Star Trek" aficionados. Excursions were made into the Beta and Gamma Quadrants (especially in "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" and its wormhole that lead deep into the Gamma Quadrant), but very little was known about the very distant Delta Quadrant, except for the species known as the Borg that were introduced to Starfleet in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" thanks to the shenanigans of the interfering & powerful alien known simply as Q (John de Lancie). "Star Trek Voyager", then, became the vehicle by which the unknown Delta Quadrant at the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy could become known and defined within the "Star Trek" universe, but not due to human means. Instead, a very powerful alien (not Q) during the first episode of "Star Trek Voyager" pulled the starship, a Maqi ship and their respective crews deep into the Delta Quadrant. Even while traveling at warp 8 (the fastest safe speed that a typical starship can travel), it would take a ship several decades to traverse the vast distance to return to Earth. Hence, the seven-year series focused on the survival of Voyager's Starfleet crew (combined with the Maqi crew), who are completely isolated and unable to even maintain normal communications with Earth, as well as the crew's ultimate desire to find a way home faster than their ship is capable of going. Also, along the way, Voyager adopts a few Delta Quadrant natives. The primary cast members of the seventh season of "Voyager" include Captain Catherine Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran), the half-Klingon Lt. B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson), Ensign Thomas Eugene Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill), Delta Quadrant native (Talaxian) Neelix (Ethan Phillips), the holographic Emergency Medical Holographic Program (a.k.a., "The Doctor", played by Robert Picardo), the Vulcan Lt. Cmdr. Tuvok (Tim Russ), Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) and the former Borg drone Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). Voyager's seventh season begins with the episode "Unimatrix Zero, Part 2". In this continuation of the sixth-season cliffhanger final episode, the Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson) decides to destroy the subversive Unimatrix Zero once and for all, but Captain Janeway sees it as an opportunity to infiltrate the Borg collective by way of a virus. When the Borg Queen finds a cube with three infected drones, she destroys it. To protect the drones that can visit Unimatrix Zero from being discovered and destroyed, Captain Janeway & Seven of Nine decide to destroy it. During the seventh season of "Voyager", Seven of Nine faces death in episode "Imperfection", the Doctor is kidnapped in episode "Critical Care", Lt. Barclay (Dwight Schultz) visits Voyager as a hologram in episode "Inside Man", B'Elanna discovers shes pregnant in episode "Lineage", Q visits Voyager again in episode "Q2", Neelix leaves Voyager in episode "Homestead" and Admiral Catherine Janeway from the future visits to help voyager home in the two part series finalé "Endgame". The best seventh-season episodes, in order of airdate, include "Unimatrix Zero, Part 2", "Imperfection", "Critical Care", "Inside Man", "Body and Soul", "Lineage", "Repentance", "Prophecy", "The Void", "Human Error", "Q2", "Author, Author", "Friendship One", "Natural Law", "Renaissance Man", "Endgame, Part 1" and series finalé "Endgame, Part 2". The least memorable seventh-season episodes include "Flesh and Blood, Parts 1 & 2", "Shattered", "Workforce, Parts 1 & 2" and "Homestead". Overall, I rate the seventh season of "Voyager" with 4 out of 5 stars. It was on par with the sixth season for the most part, but ended on a high-note with the series finalé. Well done to the actors, writers, producers and crew that brought "Star Trek Voyager" to life for seven wonderful years. Rating:  - Oh good, it's the endWhile the last season was not great, it was an improvement, though the Chakotay/Seven of Nine love story was lame and really came from no where. Here was another stumbling block of the series. One has to wonder just how big Hirogen space is, because they bump into the again in the two-part Flesh and Blood (as the consequences of Janeway giving them the holodeck technology bites her in the ass). Like the Malon, who a made several appearances in the fifth season and were told their space is small (yet late in the season by the time Juggernaut aired, Voyager has jumped ten years closer to the Alpha Quadrant after the events of Dark Frontier), the return of the Hirogens is a head scratchier. True, we are told early on that the Hirogen have no real homeworld and they travel the comos, spread out like dandelions, but the odds of running into them -10,000 light years closer to Earth -was not realistic. I mean there was no way they could've run into the same Hirogen they gave the holodeck technology to in the first place. It just seemed they had this concept -Hologram Rights - so they hoped no one paid attention. And while Shattered was a clip show, with out the actual clips unlike Relativity, it was another example of how desperate the show had become. As the series began to wind down, it began to tie up loose ends, as all but one of the Borgs kids were finally shuffled off. And while a Q episode is always worth waiting for, Q2 was a sorry story, as it looked like John de Lancie was tired of playing the role. And only God knows how he was able to get his own real life son, Keegan to play Q's son. But as the stories dried up, the show reverted back to predictable episodes. As an example, while it nice to finally get rid of the ever-annoying Neelix, his send off Homestead was very hackneyed. And then there was the Doctor's directionless holonovel thing. Desperation can breed bad stories, and Voyager seems to swim in its ocean. And while I had given up on the show way back in season 2, I had some dark hope the show would find its feet, but. Alas, it was not going to happen. The series ended with a remake of a previous episode, but is also probably Mulgrew's finest performance, at least as the silver-haired Admiral. Endgame opened 10 years after the crew of Voyager returned after spending 23 years in the Delta Quadrant. But all was not rosy, and an older, more cynical Admiral Janeway has decided to alter the outcome of what has happened. Like Timeless from the series fifth season, Janeway (like Harry was), is filled with regret at what has happened to her crew, especially Seven of Nine and Chakotay, who appeared to have died returning home. So she decides to change the rules and her future. Very politically incorrect and very "cowboy diplomacy" like. When all is said and done Endgame was a fine finale, if once again, unoriginal. There were some nice touches in this show, including Alice Krige's return as the Borg Queen and Kate Mulgrew's finest appearance as the older, bitter Janeway. Had she played Janeway like this through 7 seasons, I think the show could have been better. And while the ending was abrupt, it was in keeping with Trek's entire problem of rushing all its endings. Looking at the series as a whole, Michael Piller was able to see both its strengths and weaknesses. "The whole idea of exploring space is a metaphor for exploring ourselves," he said. "When Voyager did that, I think it did very well. I think the Seven of Nine stories gave us some insight into humanity and the meaning of humanity that the series sorely wanted. It had its moments. But when it did the exploding spaceships and space-monsters and so forth, the problem is that that's what everybody does in science fiction. I think that reduces Star Trek to being no better and worse than other science fiction shows." Piller told Cinefantastique's Anna L. Kaplan (via TrekWeb). "I have always encouraged the writers to try to find the human elements, the moral and ethical dilemmas," he said. "I think there was less an appetite for that after I left." Ultimately, Voyager lacked a distinctive voice; a style to call it's own. TOS featured a likable cast and featured parables. TNG went a step further with their stories, and made the crew more human, as character development and story arc's made the show more realistic. DS9 took a little of TNG's soap opera elements and took it in another direction, featuring a near series long arc that told the viewers nothing was as it seemed. Voyager attempted to take all those elements from the three previous series -and it worked only on occasion- but nothing else was added to the mix. There was no growth and change as the series aged because it had its Temporal Reset Button pushed week after week. And because of that, the show became fated to be a somewhat entertaining Star Trek series, but at the end of the day, offered nothing in the way of the next step in this franchise's evolutionary life. Rating: - Best StarTrek Series Ever.Like I said!!! BEST SERIES EVER!!! GOOD JOB PARAMOUNT :) KEEP IT UP. WAITING FOR THE NEXT ONE... !!!
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