I started watching Voyager. Here are my thoughts on episodes of the first season

I started watching Voyager, having previously watched TNG, TOS and DS9 (yes, in that order) and I decided to write down some short opinions on each episode. If this post gets any traction I'll do more for the next seasons I have yet to see. (So please keep the comments spoiler-free for seasons 2-7)

101 - Caretaker

Summary: Voyager is tasked with finding a missing Maquis ship but they are spirited away to the Delta Quadrant by a mysterious space station that is beaming energy to a desert planet. There the crew discover an underground civilization worshipping someone called the Caretaker. Stranded 70 000 light years away from home, the crew begin their adventures.

Opinion: This episode felt very much like TNG's Encounter at Farpoint, which is to say it was all set up and introductions wrapped into an uninteresting plot. Compared to DS9's darker and more oppressive visuals (Cardassian architecture is the worst) I welcomed the more clean an bright look of a Federation vessel. The underground civilization, filmed mostly on location, provided for some solid production values and overall I think the episode did a good job of setting up intrigue for later. I expect the merging of Voyager's crew with the Maquis rebels will provide some tension later on. The cast is a roster of PC-friendly characters (a black Vulcan, a female Captain, a Native American officer, an Asian ensign) an I look forward to finding out who will become my favorites.

102 - Parallax

Summary: Voyager tries to help a ship stuck in the event horizon of a picturesque singularity but they soon get into trouble of their own. Meanwhile, the open post of Chief of Engineering is a topic of hot debate between Janeway and Chakotay, who wants to promote the hot headed former Maquis Torres. And the doctor is shrinking.

Opinion: This episode represented what I think of as typical Star Trek in that it combined wondrous cosmic anomalies and temporal shenanigans with the intrigues of command and Starfleet loyalty. It also helped to flesh out some characters, especially Lt. Torres. A standout negative of this fairly enjoyable episode was a very obvious infodump by Neelix, who literally took Kes aside to explain to her in a pretty childish way what a singularity is. I don't remember Trek ever resorting to such obvious explanations instead of assuming that the audience is well versed in such cosmic matters (though I might just be forgetting other such instances from the previous shows).

103 - Time and Again

Summary: Voyager investigates a planet destroyed by a recent explosion of polaric energy. A subspace fracture takes Janeway and Paris back in time to a day before the explosion, where they find the planet's peaceful occupants battling their government's use of polaric energy. Meanwhile, Kes begins to flex her dormant psychic powers.

Opinion: Perhaps this episode was meant to be an allegory to nuclear energy and its dangers, but I don't think this angle was conveyed successfully. However, it was another fairly typical Trek scenario with time travel and trying to stop a disaster and I enjoyed that quite a bit. Exterior shots on locations were also much appreciated as it gave the production values of this episode a nice esthetic boost. It was also the first episode where Kes had anything to do, which was nice.

104 - Phage

Summary: Searching for deposits of dilithium crystals to fuel the ship, the crew instead encounter a species of organ harvesters who steal Neelix's lungs. As Voyager pursues their ship, the doctor attempts to keep Neelix alive.

Opinion: I was intrigued by the idea of getting one's lungs stolen in what has to be the ultimate sci-fi mugging. I also liked the fact that Voyager needs to find fuel - in fact I was reminded of early Battlestar Galactica episodes with this plot line. Kes helps the doctor with some character growth and Neelix is more than comic relief this time, which I appreciated. The organ harvesting aliens were nicely designed, with make up that was quite gross and conveyed the idea behind this race very effectively.

105 - The Cloud

Summary: Looking for energy reserves to fuel Janeway's coffeemaker, Voyager flies into a colorful nebula. However, it turns out to actually be a huge life form that the ship accidentally wounded by its passage. Janeway decides to heal the creature, much to the chagrin of Neelix, while Paris invites Kim to his holodeck hideout and Chakotay introduces the Captain to spirit animals.

Opinion: I though it was kind of ridiculous that the driving force behind this episode's plot was filling up depleted energy reserves and yet the crew waste a lot of energy running a holodeck simulation of a French tavern. The idea of a giant creature that can be mistaken for a nebula is intriguing but I didn't find this episode very engaging. Neelix's lamentations that Janeway puts the crew in danger by exploring stuff instead of just going home was pleasantly meta and on point, though, and it was my favorite part of this episode.

106 - Eye of the Needle

Summary: Kim discovers a micro-wormhole that leads to the Alpha Quadrant. It's too small to fly through, but they establish communications with a Romulan science ship on the other side

Opinion: This is the first time the crew actually worked towards getting home and they came pretty damn close. It was an intriguing episode and it did some good work establishing that they are really far away and they miss home (something I think the previous episodes kind of failed to do). It was a real bummer that the plan didn't work out, though I didn't expected them o get home in the first season, anyway.

107 - Ex Post Facto

Summary: Paris is convicted for murdering a scientist and sentenced to relive the deed from the dead man's point of view through a memory implanting procedure that causes him brain damage. Janeway is determined to prove his innocence and Tuvok investigates.

Opinion: I really liked the idea of punishing a murderer by making him relive his victim's ordeal over and over again. It was a cool concept, but I wish they did something more interesting with it. The aliens had terrible make up (I honestly don't know what they were going for with this mess) and the murder plot wasn't very engaging.

108 - Emanations

Summary: Having discovered a new element in the ring system of a planet, the crew investigate an asteroid's cave, where they find dead bodies cocooned in a white webbing. A subspace anomaly then transports Kim to a funeral parlor on a planet where they're big on the afterlife.

Opinion: This episode had a very interesting idea behind a largely boring plot. The crew inadvertently shatter a whole culture's idea of the afterlife and they all have to deal with that. It's a great idea ripe for philosophical exploration but I don't think this episode's script was up to the task.

109 - Prime Factors

Summary: A famously hospitable alien race invite the crew for some shore leave and Kim discovers they have technology that could transport them at least half-way home. But they won't share it with them.

Opinion: Not a bad episode. Again, there is a great idea here that I don't think was explored enough. The alien race never shares their technology with anyone as a rule, because they don't want it to be misused. While the crew are angry about it, Janeway points out that other alien races might feel just as angry about Starfleet's First Contact policy and they should respect the rules of someone superior just as they ask inferior races to respect Starfleet rules of non-interference. Also, I once again did not expect them to get home so soon so it was obvious that the technology wouldn't work even when Tuvok obtained it illegally, so no surprises there.

110 - State of Flux

Summary: After the crew discover a piece of exploded Starfleet technology on a Kazon ship, Tuvok suspects they may have a mole in their midst. Chakotay's former Maquis crewmember and lover Seska is the prime suspect.

Opinion: This was a pretty good episode and it actually gave Seska a pretty good reason for working with the Kazon. My only problem with it is that there was really only one suspect the entire time and all the clues pointed towards Seska from the beginning, so there was no surprising reveal at the end. It was just like yeah, we were right the entire time.

111 - Heroes and Demons

Summary: Kim goes missing inside his Beowulf holodeck program and Chakotay and Tuvok disappear too when they go looking for him. It's up to the doctor to save them inside the program.

Opinion: I was kind of disappointed that another Trek show is doing holodeck malfunction episodes. I had enough of those on TNG, thank you. But, having said that, this was actually a good story and pretty enjoyable to watch. The doctor leaving the sickbay for the first time was a good way for his character to grow and experience new things. However, the final "something tells me this wasn't the last time" wink at the audience was pretty cringey. Yeah, I get it, there will me more holodeck filler episodes with the doc.

112 - Cathexis

Summary: Janeway's Victorian holodeck adventure is cut short when a shuttlecraft with Chakotay and Tuvok aboard is attacked. Chakotay is left braindead and the crew begin to act strangely as some unseen force is stopping the ship from entering a nebula and pursuing the attackers.

Opinion: I always enjoy episodes that have a "The Thing" vibe to them where crew members aren't who they appear to be and you can never know whom to trust. DS9's The Adversary is a favorite of mine for this very reason. Cathexis gave several characters stuff to do and it even gave Chakotay some depth despite the fact that he was absent in most of it. I was definitely glad the episode took this route as the holodeck cold open had me expecting something very different and much more tiresome. However, I'm noticing a somewhat annoying trend where either an episode doesn't deal with getting the ship back home at all or they come super close only for it to fall apart at the last minute. Will there ever be some middle ground where Voyager just gets closer or they achieve a step in some greater plan to get to the Alpha Quadrant?

113 - Faces

Summary: The organ harvesting aliens from 104 kidnap three crew members including Torres, whom they split into her Klingon and human selves.

Opinion: I wasn't expecting the Vidiians to make another appearance but it' a good thing they did. After intriguing me with stealing a whole set of lungs they did something even more interesting and split Torres into two people. Her strong and brave Klingon version inevitably clashes with the weak and scared human and it was a fun way of exploring the character. I only wish this duality was more central to the episode, as it took a long while before the two Torreses even met. It also got me wondering what it would have been like if they made an episode of TOS in this style and split Spock.

114 - Jetrel

Summary: A member of the Haakonians, a race warring with the Talaxians, arrives on Voyager. He is responsible for creating a WMD that wiped out a whole Talaxian moon with Neelix's family on it and now he is looking for the cure to a disease caused by the fallout.

Opinion: This was an interesting episode that might be best summarized as a meeting between Oppenheimer and a Japanese war veteran. It gave Neelix an unexpected depth that made him out to be a much more serious character than previously presented. While the pace of the episode was quite sluggish, it had some very interesting conversations and introspective moments, making it another example of classic Trek: slow and deep. But I thought the final reveal of the episode, that Jetrel was actually trying to resurrect vaporized people, was a bit too much and it certainly needed a long conversation on the ethics and nuances of bringing people back from the dead.

115 - Learning Curve

Summary: The ship's irreplaceable bio-mechanical circuits ale malfunctioning and Tuvok is tasked with training insubordinate Maquis crew members.

Opinion: This was a great episode (albeit not as a very good season finale) and I think this is what most of season 1 should have been about. The writers had so much potential stories about integrating the rebellious Maquis people into the Starfleet crew, but instead they wasted time with standalone stories like Emanations or Ex Post Facto. This episode was what I was hoping Voyager will be when I started watching. I can only imagine how amazingly the merger of two rival crews would have been handled on a more gritty show like BSG. But when I look back at the 15 episodes, I guess I can't really complain that much. I think Voyager had a better first season than TNG and if it only goes up from here, then I'm hopefully in for something good.