God Voyager really knew how to produce some unbearably bland episodes. At least you can laugh at Threshold, but even just hearing stuff like Fairhaven or 11.59 described in a video makes you cringe.
The worst episode for me, was probably the Chakotay boxing one. Mainly because i'm not a fan of boxing at all, plus seemed very out of character for Chakotay to suddenly enjoy boxing. His interest in that sport was never mentioned before, or again in the whole series. He was always more about vision quests and spiritual stuff than that.
I just fucking hated Chakotay. Everyone says Neelix is the worst character, I highly disagree. At least Neelix tried to be interesting. Also, to tell the truth, I actually like Neelix. I never found him annoying, just really friendly.
While I'm a fan of boxing I also hated that episode, I found it incredibly baffling the way it was executed and the conclusion was incredibly anticlimactic which is a theme for sadly a lot of voyager episodes. Great premise, baffling execution and anticlimactic ending
I really disliked 'Fury'. If they wanted to bring Kes back for an episode, did they have to make it so bleak? She was always kind and compassionate and they bring her back as a completely bitter old nut. That was so disappointing. Why couldn't she have joined forces with Voyager to fight a common enemy, and then they both happily go their separate ways afterwards?
The Belana episode was infuriating. No doctor nor leader would have given in to such extreme risks to reconcile a dream. As for Threshold, they act like nothing happened in the end. Those are traumatizing events! No coping nor ptsd?!
On paper the 37s sounded amazing but it was big let down. But that was kinda the theme with voyager, they had all the good stories and scripts but didn't do much with it
I'll say this for Threshold: it's very memorable. I watched the series as a kid and it is one of the few episodes that stuck with me because of how weird it was.
I'd love to have been there for the brainstorming session on the Kazon. "I know, let's make Klingons!" "But we already have Klingons!" "...I know, let's make Klingons!" "BRILLIANT!!"
My goodness, I forgot I left this comment. Well allow me to follow up, since I recently re-watched Threshold. Yes, it's terrible. But I found myself enjoying it anyways, kind of in a Spock's Brain kind of way. And I don't know if I would call it THE worst. Anyway, my comment still stands, you really need to watch this episode if you haven't.
The concept behind the episode is incredibly stupid, but I can't call it one of the very worst episodes, because the actor playing Tuvix himself does put in an extremely good performance. If he'd just been a random new alien instead of a fusion of two existing characters who then has to be separated in order to restore the status quo, this episode would have been fine.
The Naomi Wildman episode was either the first or second time I found Neelix enjoyable in the series. Can’t remember whether or not the episode in which he literally died came first. I find the episodes where he’s the comedic character insufferable but when he’s trying to be a caretaker for Naomi and later the Borg children it gives him more of a sense of purpose to the plot beyond being possessive of Kes or annoying to Tuvok. The episode where he dies too is good because it actually has dramatic tension
One of the worst episodes to me is "EXTREME RISK", and mainly because we are expected to believe that Torres has been long suffering from clinical depression? This is not a topic you can just mash into one episode. They should have built up to it, kind of like Paris' bad behavior in season 2. Or Garibaldis' drinking problem on Babylon 5!
Threshold has to be positively the very worst episode of Voyager ever. I rather like to forget the episode actually exists. (Like I do with the entirety of STD)
I would consider Star Trek Discovery to be actually Canon ( even deep down it's not IMO), then to watch "Thershold" ever again or even acknowledge it's existence right up there with Spock' Brain, or that DS9 episode were Quark became an transgender for some damn reason🤢.
I liked Once Upon a Time tbh. The line about Captain Janeway jumping to warp after one more cup of coffee was pretty funny. True that Trevis & Flotter were annoying af, but I liked how they snuck in Wildman & her baby, Naomi. Sort of like how TNG slipped Keiko O'brien in where she didn't need to be. I always like seeing extra characters explored here & there.
Star Trek has a great cast of good supporting cast. Characters that work best at the sides. Garak is a good example. He is best when trying to convince that he is just a tailor. His banter with Bashier, or the little feuds with Quark. The hostility towards Dukat. But an entire series about him would be too much to fill. Shran is similar in Enterprise, best when he shows up occasionally, but great. Same goes for Naomi. And by the topic of side characters, I would've loved if Voyager had explored that a bit more. After all there is nobody else around in the delta quadrant, and even TNG hat the awesome episode "Lower Decks" that explored the setting from a different view. Voyager could've done so much more with the conflict between the Starfleet and Marquis crew. Or maybe an episode that shows how the life of the average crewman would look like. Maybe in a setting that is not overly thretening, just to show how Janeway and Chakotay manage to keep the crew together when they are not opposed to the somthing like the Borg.
One of my biggest pet peeves with TV programmes is when characters are needlessly shoehorned into episodes just for fanservice I respect your opinion though 👏🏾
Lets Have A Discussion The pound sterling is a ‘real’ currency and used in many countries. In fact it’s a also included in the currency basket. The U.S. dollar index started in 1973, and today is a basket of six currencies; the euro, Japanese yen, Canadian dollar, British pound, Swedish krona and Swiss franc. The euro is by far the biggest weighting making up 58 percent of the basket.
Am I the only one who cheered to see Janeway order the cloying, annoying, and ridiculous Tuvix to literally stop existing! The only redeeming moment of this pointless, useless episode!
I really like that episode. I agree that Tuvix was a little bit annoying but the actual ethical dilemma of separating Tuvix back to Tuvok and Neelix or not was so interesting.
You went back to Picard's "Truth" speech a couple of times but it seems you just ignored part of the speech: "Personal truth". Janeway experienced something that was life changing. So did B'Elana. And you may recall, Pickard experienced a few of those as well. Those experiences were real for them. They made them question and re-evaluate science and their own purpose. Although I suppose they may have been boring to the "now" generation, they were certainly not boring to the "reality" generation. "Shaka, when the walls fell".
Sorry, corthew, being from your so-called `reality´ generation (haha) myself I still think Rowan rightly picked some of Voyager's not so much boring but most of all bland and badly written episodes. He also points out correctly that some (not all) of their plots had real potential, which was being wasted due to dismal execution. So, your ageless cultural critique, pitching the false stereotype of shallow contemporaries against the false stereotype of a more reality-grounded and experience-prone former generation, has no objective value, and only tells us something about yourself, and the resentments you harbor. I liked your reminder of TNG's `Darmok´ episode, haven't seen that in a while, but it could also be called a kind of a Freudian Slip because the clichèd critique you offer could itself benefit from some difficult inter-generational bridgebuilding.
no matter what Star Trek. I hate all their holodeck adventures and usually skip through those episodes. NO matter if its Picards fantasy about being a cliche detective, tom paris as proton - or janeway as english creepy nanny. The only holodeck fantasy that I thought funny was the doctors idea of a perfect family. And then they had to spoil that for him by let his "daughter" die slowly 😩 Just to prove him that he has the wrong idea how a family works? Very cruel.
11:59 was one of my favourite episodes. Perhaps it was the soundtrack, but I found myself very invested in the drama. And I guess I'm one of the few people who liked the holodeck Irish town, but I thought Spirit Folk was a really fun episode, too.
To me, VGR is the weakest Trek series anyway. It’s TNG Redux, only even blander, and TNG managed to also produce a number of flat or terrible episodes, despite its overall high quality. But VGR has an even higher percentage of bad or average or filler episodes, it’s almost depressing. As if that’s not bad enough, even some of the good episodes have plot holes or cheats that make one reconsider its overall quality when rewatching. As it is, I only have a list of barely 80 watchable or good episodes, but at least I can get through the show faster, while pining over all that unrealized potential.
The warp 10 barrier was mentioned elsewhere (including on TNG), but Threshold is the only time in the 24th century's main timeline that it has been reached. It was exceeded in the 23rd century, but the accepted explanation is that the warp numbering system was altered at some point in the 100 years between, and it was exceeded in one or two alternate timelines in TNG. Threshold's problem was not the warp 10 barrier, but the entire rest of the episode.
Dovahkiin Yes, and they never stated what speed it was when they warped to another galaxy or to that imagination realm (as I choose to call it). I can't find an estimate of the speeds involved, but I recall seeing something years ago of something like 9.99999999.
weejockpoopongmcplop That's a fair criticism, and one that is never overcome. It was said in the episode that it (effectively) puts them everywhere in the universe at once. The problem is therefore not in deciding when to stop, but in how to stop where you want to stop. There is no indication that they planned that far ahead.
Once upon a Time has an awesome moment where the Doctor, trying to change the subject on Naomi about her mom, seeing neelix came in and the Doctor says how great to see you neelix and Ethan Philips has the most amazing reaction to it cause almost everyone cant stand neelix so he's taken aback by the Doctor's statement and it keeps the episode from being god awful. One of the best moments of the show ever in that scene at least for me.
How did Endgame not end up on here? How many times during the series did Janeway have the option to go back in time to stop the events that sent Voyager into the Delta Quadrant, and she always said no to it, due to the impact the Voyager already had on so many species during their journey. Essentially last part of that journey, in which Seven of Nine dies, all the impact Voyager would have had was ignored. It was a fun episode, but a real cheap, quick cut excuse to conclude the series.
The part where Janeway is changing the traits of her holographic boyfriend was pretty funny. The part where Janeway says Delete the Wife was hilarious.
I actually really love 11:59 and rate it as a top Voyager episode, more or less precisely BECAUSE it's such a different thing. I enjoyed learning about Shannon O'Donnel, the commentary about how history can become sanitized and idealized over time, and how it resonated with Janeway. It just really worked for me, but I get why it doesn't for most people.
Furry should be number one. Not be because of how bad it is on its own. But because of how it screws up the plot. I just pretend this episode doesn't exist, and so should everyone else.
It wasn’t that bad tbh i mean that is still quite an interesting one to me.. just because it shows a different side of him you normally don’t see in regular episodes.. well in my opinion at least
I'm rewatching voyager and stopped for a month because I'm having trouble getting through 11:59. At least the other bad episodes take place on Voyager in space with the show's characters. 11:59 feels like it comes from a completely different show. The only connection is that Kate plays both Janeway and the main character of that episode
Terrible episodes were "Tattoo" (by the author of the worst TAS episode, "Magicks of Megas Tu" - honestly, after that, WHY would they invite him back?!?), and the majority of the Harry-centric episodes - unfortunate, because I liked his character, and he deserved better episodes.
Threshold was so awful! As for the Warp 10 thing, it's supposed to be an infinite velocity. Theoretically, in Star Trek, if you could reach Warp 10 you would be EVERYWHERE at once; basically, you'd be God. Not even Q could accomplish that!
Although Voyager has some good episodes it’s much weaker than TNG and DS9 for me. Too many cheap costume aliens, weaker cast, way too many bad holodeck episodes.
I'm on S3 of a rewatch after 10 years and after watching Favorite Son I came searching to see if it made it onto any lists because damn that was a terrible terrible episode. That outshines most if not all of the episodes on this list imo. What a waste of an hour. While Threshold was in bad taste - why did they want to script salamander babies and what were they trying to say about our course of evolution, lmao - at least I didn't fall asleep watching it. I also thought Darkling wearisom along with Rise. I guess the issue I'm finding in general this far into the rewatch is that they fail to advance the characters in any satisfying sense and so the action of the episode ends up feeling pointless because there is no progress. For example Sacred Ground had potential to lead somewhere interesting if it had been a catalyst to Janeway actually questioning science and faith. It could have been interesting if in Coda the appearance of her 'father' had helped her deal with something unresolved that was impacting her in the present. At this point the Doctor is the only character who has shown any kind of steady progress and maybe Paris.
I'm doing the same and season 3 has terrible episodes, but also some great ones. You can understand why the ratings dropped the network wanted to change the show
@@sabercrosby8128 Yeah, there are some great episodes too but they did need to shake it up. Seven def got comparatively wonderful development which is prob why she was so popular after her arrival. I also have to say that Fury ended up being my most disliked episode. What an awful character assassination...
Late one night in the spring of 2000 (while a member of a nameless boyband) we were on the paramount lot attending an after party for a movie called Snowday. Anyway, having got talking to a very drunk Paramount exec about star trek, we quickly found ourselves being ushered into a locked sound stage, and when the lights went on-- it was the bridge of Voyager. An unforgettable experience. The bridge, Sickbay, ten forward- basically all of the main locations were backed onto one another and were smaller than you'd expect. On the sound stage across from it was a warren of endless corridors. I sat in Janeway's chair ( covered in see through plastic, as were all of the chairs) And my reason for boring you all with this story is that while there, I found and "stole" a call sheet which one of the cast had obviously left lying around, and the episode they were in the middle of making at the time was "Fury" which of course makes this list. I'm in agreement because despite such an amazing experience in my life being associated with that episode, it's still a steaming pile of shit. For me, The Doctor and Seven were the two standout characters.
Klingon episodes are on the whole really dull, they're an overused species that need to be left alone. One thing I really liked about Torres initially was her rejection of everything Klingon, despite the physical advantages it gave her she never wanted any part of them. As for her not getting over her issues, its the underlying failure of VOY in that pretty much everything is reset for the next episode because the producers or the studio or whoever thought that the audience could handle growth and development and continuing storylines, because we'd all get too confused and lost.
I kinda disagree with Sacred Ground. The reason it was all randomly vaugley spiritual stuff was because that's the kinda thing Janeway assumed she'd have to do. It doesn't excuse it for being bland but It is interesting in concept. The whole episode was about how a scientificly minded person like Janeway sees religion. How all of things in it can explained logically through science and thus it's just ritualistic and tradition. When she learns about the mystic of it from the weird guide lady (I can't exactly explain how she said it off memory) she begins to understand it more. In the end it isn't her not believing the truth, it's just her dissapointment at seeing everything being so clinically explained after having such an "interesting" experiance.
Unfortunately I would say the first episode Caretaker. I remember when I was 13 and I first watched the episode. Scratching my head thinking surely they used the array to get home and then left a bomb on the Caretakers array to blow up. Or why couldn't the Caretaker just leave a computer programmed to look after the Ocampa on the planet like a hologram.
Did you not notice that the way the caretaker transported them killed her on board doctor, pilot, and commander among others.. Why would they use it to go back knowing for sure some people would die again would it be worth it to get back fast knowing so many of the crew would for sure die? I wouldn't want to be under the captain that would be that insane... Also it would have left the Kazon with the array and let them commit genocide on the Ocampa is getting back fast and killing members of your crew worth it knowing you allowed a genocide to happen? As for why the caretaker couldn't leave something I am not sure but I assume part of the energy of his ship/array came from him and a hologram wouldn't have it it died with him. And why they couldn't leave a bomb there were other Kazon ships on the way and would be there shortly and Tuvok said it would take him time to even figure out how to send them back most likely they wouldn't have had time to do all that or even get sent back with Kazon reinforcements on the way.
Pretty sure with enough time the crew would've figured out a way to get everyone home safe and keep the Ocampa in a state where they could survive and defend themselves. But plot demanded them to be stranded there, so they had to blow it up to not let the array fall into the wrong hands.
Ashes to Ashes was the worst Voyager episode for me. A character we never meet before Ensign Lyndsey Ballard died three years ago and given a space burial as is traditional for Starfleet. Unbeknownst to the crew of Voyager a race called the Kobali changed her human DNA as much as possible to become Kobali and reanimated her corpse. She lived as a Kobali all that time but secretly hated it and all she wanted to do was return back to Voyager. She does and it's not an easy adjustment to return back to her old life. Her Kobali father tracked her down and it first was begging for her to return but when she resisted they were prepared to take her by force and in the end she willingly returns with them. The problem I have is that at first Ensign Ballard insisted that she wanted nothing more than to return home but as soon as it becomes apparent it will not be a smooth transition she gives up immediately and Janeway allows she to give up and take the easy path. No one aboard Voyager seem realized that after years of being brainwashed that she would naturally want to return to her captors. It's called Stockholm Syndrome but that topic isn't even brought up at all .Janeway fought tooth-and-nail for Seven of nine because she knew Seven's Humanity was stolen from her just as this girl's was. The captain fought hard for Seven but not for Ensign Ballard. It seems to go against Captain Janeway's nature and did nothing for the show as a whole.
How did you ever pick only 10? The entire first two seasons are really, but really meh and then there's Fair Haven etc. Also, B'Elanna doesn't need counseling, she needs banana pancakes obviously. :D
Yeah, somewhat after Scorpion the level dropped. There are some good ones like "The Voyager Conspiracy" that plays with the ongoing continuity errors, "Blink of an Eye", the ironic "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy"and "Live Fast and Prosper" as well the mentioned "Shattered" The rest of the last two seasons are pretty bad.
It is because we use the base-10 counting system and the half and the double of it. It's always 10 this or that...or 5 this or that...or 20 this or that. It is never 9 this or that...or 13 this or that. Our perception of reality is being limited by the counting system we employ. And we consider ourselves conscious beings? Really? We've go a long way to go before we actually exceed the sum of our programming. A long way.
on rewatch, season 1 was actually pretty good. Caretaker was a solid pilot, and Eye of the Needle, Jetrel, Phage, Faces were all excellent. Parallax, Heroes and Demons, and State of Flux are pretty good too. The rest are mostly alright, with only Cathexis, Time & Again, and perhaps Ex Post Facto being sub par. S2 on the other hand was the absolute worst of the show.
I like Fair haven, Drive, Spirit Folk there all good(the rest are fair). Its ridiculous and I like holodeck episodes and Tom and B'ellana get MARRIED so it can't be bad.
Season 3 Picard wasn't too bad. Other than the white male characters were neutered or damaged and the chicks were in charge it was ok. At least put them on equal footing. Discovery is the worst offender of this philosophy. Pushing the LGTBQ agenda to maximum warp. Which turns off most the audience When your focus is pushing a message to the point your killing the storytelling it does not work. Most of Discovery is unwatchable. Season 4 ep with Tilly on planet with Cadets is a laughable unrealistic joke. Strange new worlds are trying to recapture TOS, with a sprinkling of course, of the woke message. if they ditched that it would be a good show.
Agrees with almost all but the Fair haven episodes. I really kinda liked them. The Hollo characters are funny and the doctors as a Priest is kinda fun too. And I don't think Neelix is so bad. When Kes was onboard he was, this jellousy he had was just bad.... But since Kes vanished form the show, I think Neelix even got a little better.
What about Course: Oblivion? Here's a synopses. In an earlier episode(Demon) some liquid meal life-forms gain sentience by copying the DNA of the crew of Voyager. We discover half way through Course: Oblivion that the crew of the Voyager we are seeing are the copies who ended up thinking they were the original Voyager crew. They suffer horribly as their bodies dissolve, fail to preserve their history and any documentation of their existence and then everyone dies in despair. THE END.
This was an excellent watch! I'm surprised how many of these I've seen. Every entry cast me back 20 years to before dinner Voyager watching. A kind of weird bitter Nostalgia. I would definitely love to see more of these type of videos. More Stargate stuff would be great too. Keep up the good work :)
Hey man i really like your videos but you missed the point of once upon a time BIG TIME The fact that neelix doesn't want to tell naomi about her mother is treated as the main conflict in the episode, even Janeway forces him to do so but he doesn't want to because of his personal struggle dealing with his family death. He is not doing the right thing but it's because he is missguided and the episode shows that
Equinox - simultaneously the best and worst episode(s). Best, that it showcased decent writing, good acting and a thrilling plot. But then worst that it showed off alot of what was wrong with Voyager, the new crew that joined we never saw again / reset button at the end, Voyager had a comparatively super easy time in the delta quadrant, Janeway turning into an unnecessary hard character, semi-ruined the character from the earlier seasons. They threatened to push the boat out but ended up being very conservative and it was never the show it quite could have been.
I love Threshold for the sheer audacity to go that stupid. It has some nice make up effects and body horror moments (Paris ripping his tongue out... wish that would have been permanent). I want a spin-off episode about the Janeway/Paris salamander babies.
Voyager is my favorite Star Trek, but yea. When they drop the ball, they drop the ball. In the words of Janeway at the end of Threshold "We will never speak of this again." Though I disagree with you that these were the worst. Some of them. Yes. Definitely. But there are ones that I found way worse than some on your list.
I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually say that, although she definitely should. I almost always push for more continuity in Star Trek but this was definitely one event that should NOT be referenced again later.
1:24 I looked it up and apparently 11:59 started out as a potential Q episode, where Janeway realizes that Q was messing around with her ancestor. Then Q was replaced with Guinan. However, those aspects were eventually dropped and they decided to just focus on Janeway's ancestor. Joe Menosky stated, "Our original inspiration for this was to do an episode where we didn't see Voyager at all. All we saw was Kate Mulgrew playing a distant ancestor [of Kathryn Janeway]. The idea was to tell a quintessentially Star Trek story without any science fiction. I wrote a teleplay, and it was a very painful [script] to write, because our premise wasn't working. We realized that we couldn't tell a story just on Earth without having Voyager to ground us in some way. We ended up doing a third of the episode set on Voyager."
Actually, the Warp 10 thing has been an issue in Star Trek since they moved to a log scale system in TNG. Ships can travel at various levels of 9.9xxxx, but 10 is meant to be infinite speed, but like the current light barrier, it is meant to require infinite energy.
Actually, the Warp 10 barrier has been well established in the TNG & DS9 lore. Ships can achieve ever increasing levels of Warp 9.9999+, with ever increasing inputs of energy, but Warp 10 is impossible.....if only because of the amount of energy needed to achieve it. A TNG novel called Vendetta deals with the effects of crossing the Warp 10 barrier much better ;).
Rowan J Coleman its established in all the TNG tech manuals....which I bought at the time. You sound surprised that Voyager had issues with Continuity ;).
Marcus Hicks. You seem to suggest the rest of the franchise didnt lol. I posted this elsewhere but I think that in the case of All Good Things where the refit Enterprise is ordered to warp 15 that one of two things happened. This being after voyagers return the federation adopted their warp 10 tech to exceed 10 without the side effects but also without the infinite speed. They adopted some of the tech encountered that is faster than typical warp and simply extrapolated those speeds on the logarithmic warp scale for convenience. Or most likely imo they are well into the warp 9.9xxxxx era where one end represents a comfortable cruising speed and the other a dangerous event. With either end sepperated by just a few decimal places. Thats the type of condition that requires a re scaling of the absolutely arbitrary warp scale. And its something that has been done before so it makes a lot of sense.
Rowan, when did they top warp 10? They go stupidly fast via transwarp conduits, slipstream, etc. but at no point is Voyager's stated speed above warp 10. They only went warp 9.999...9 or some other almost arbitrary almost-10 figure.
OriginalPiMan. In the episode all good things, when picard is traveling through time, when they are aboard the riker's ship, after crushers ship explodes, right before crusher sneaks up to sedate picard, riker says to go to warp 13!
I see that Threshold is hated by everyone here however I am not sure why. I am not saying it is a great story or well executed, but salamanders to procreate, don't they? I am surprised Favorite Son did not make this list. Kim is one of the most under utilised characters in trek and this so called Harrycentric episode was a shocker. Also the one where he commands an alien ship only to find out that the aliens he is helping are the bad guys, is not great either. I actually think Once Upon A Time is a good episode. The response that Neelix gives when the captain says he needs to tell Naomi what has happened is one of the best scene of the whole series. And he was right. Janeway had no idea about grief as a child she did not lose a parent when she was young and Ethan Phillips delivery of this response is his best work in the whole of Trek.
Lol that one was hilarious if it's the one I'm thinking of... Isn't that where the "kids" end up being elderly adults who just reverse age and now have to go into some cave thing to die? Additionally, I think Voyager could easily have a "Top 20 Worst Episodes" list & still have room to spare. Not to say the show was bad, only that it had a sizable amount of clunkers that are worth mentioning as truly awful episodes.
I've heard people be complementary about "the Thaw", but I can't understand why. It was like a 45 minute obnoxious headache that didn't make sense. It was like a very very BAD attempt at a David Lynch vibe.
ah yes, Threshold. The episode where Tom Paris invents a ship that goes infinity miles per hour. And they think this could bring them home somehow, not that what actually happened was any more likely mind you.
Fair Haven...I agree. Don't really like that one either.11:59 wasn't bad though! It's about the past..doesn't have to be about the future. Totally disagree about Sacred Ground: one of the best ones of Voyager IMO because Janeway questions her scientific reasoning in this episode! Once. Upon a Time-not a favorite of mine either..however I liked the holodeck part of it. :) Barge of the Dead-totally disagree with you!!! LOVED this Bellanna centered episode. She's not whining! She's facing an inner conflict!! I loved this whole episode immensely-the costuming and the acting was wonderful. Drive: a good one for me as well. I loved that it was about a space race. :) B'Ellana Torres wasn't a complainer at al!! She was being sarcastic, witty, and not to mention pretty funny. Fury-I did agree with you on this one. Didn't really like it much. Didn't like how they did the Kes character. Very unnecessary. Sprit Folk-yep agree. Meh. Nuff said Elogium-disagree-LOVED this one! One of my most watched ones of Voyager! So interesting to watch I thought. Threshold-yep crazy as hell. But Robert McNeill did say that if you take a mind numbing substance before watching this episode...you'll appreciate it more. LOL!
Wow, you like Elogium and Sacred ground, my mind is blown. And that's hilarious that Tom's actor actually said that about Threshold, I bet the studio was annoyed with him for it.
The problem here is “character episodes” where the writers run out of scifi ideas and resort to telling us boring details about the characters. Another problem is “meet the character” episodes where you have to get to know one of the characters and find out details about them that are never relevant again... zzzzzz...
For most viewers above the age of 20, a sci-fi hook doesn't mean very much unless you have some character relevance to go along with it, whether focusing on a particular individual or just having a plot that affects all the characters at once. But I do agree that the episodes that really focus in on a particular character then suffer a great deal when the show doesn't acknowledge any of this later. Seven of Nine is the ultimate example of this - they enjoyed the "Seven learns a lesson about humanity" thing so much that every one of these episodes ends with an unstated "...and then she forgets it completely so that we can do this again later".
That's actually what bothers me since I've seen the episode. I mean, of course they were transformed, but those baby salamanders are literally their children, as weird as it sounds. Why would they abandon them? Surely they would've found some place on the ship for them.
It may be boring, but at least Fair Haven has the classic evil Janeway line, "Delete the wife." I'm surprised "Nemesis" didn't get a mention. My glimpses cannot tolerate that episode. Why is Chakotay, a former Maquis captain, giving speeches about how violence isn't the answer in this episode clearly about the dangers of wartime propaganda?
I quite liked 11:59 actually. On the other hand I really hate the episode where Tuvok kills a fake Neelix on the holodeck because HE DIDN'T KILL NEELIX FOR REAL!
I hated the episode where the doc finds out that they tampered with his memory - a hologram suffering a nervous breakdown - give me a break. To me this is where it started to Jump the shark.
awww. some of my favorite episodes are on this list. I don't see why people didnt like salamader Paris and Janeway having freaky evolution babies. I just love how everyone tries to pretend it never happened since it is never brought up again, but you just know it is brought up all the time in-universe.
I totally disagree about the episode, Sacred Ground. The whole episode puts the topic Faith vs Science.Very interesting topic that most people, like you, fail to see or understand.
That's a valid point, but the annoying-ness was probably a very deliberate stylistic choice, since the goal was more or less to drive the captive Voyager crew to madness. Sadly, this was pointed at the audience as well much more than it should have been.
Top 10 worst episodes of Star Trek Voyager in my opinion: Number 10: Basics Part 1 and 2. I am not keen on the Kazon but this episode was just tedious. The redeemed murderer storyline didn't really wash with me, Seska is just too much of a pantomime villain to be taken serious and the convenient plot for regaining control of the ship was laughable. Not to mention the boring sand planet that they tried and failed to inject some interest into. Number 9: Fair Trade. It's a Neelix episode. Unlike most Trekkies, I am neutral, borderline appreciative of Neelix as a character. He's an interesting yet flawed character in my opinion. But this episode was plain boring. We all knew that nothing of consequence would happen to Neelix and the plot duly served us nothing. Not quite as boring as some episodes further down this list but it's still an episode with limited excitement factor. Number 8: Real Life. I love The Doctor. He is my favourite character. In fact, this would probably be number 1 on the list if it didn't have the Doctor's presence in it and if they gifted it to a less interesting character like B'elanna for example. But the plot is awful. Doctor makes perfect family. Doctor realises perfect family isn't realistic. Doctor has melodramatic finale of what true family is about. Yuck. One to avoid. Number 7: The Disease. Harry Kim is an above average character. He actually has character personality progression going on in later seasons too which is more than what can be said of some characters. But this episode was rubbish. Felt like a teen drama. The Captain's interaction with Harry when reprimanding him was particularly weird. Did I mention that I hate teen dramas? Harry's naivety is an interesting character trait most of the time but in this episode, it was milked to sick bucket level. Yuck (another one to avoid). Number 6: Virtuoso. Ridiculous plot line meet most irritating characters ever. The only thing that saves this episode from going any further up the list is the humour injected by the crew when the Doctor gets too big for his boots. Strangely the Doctor isn't given much to do in this episode either. The lines given to him are uncharacteristic of him by this point of the Voyager timeline and he is truly a reactionary character in this episode. It's just weird. Combine that with the first sentence I wrote and you have a recipe for a bad episode. Number 5: Nightingale. Harry Kim, captain of his own vessel and issuing commands to his crew. Have I got your interest yet? It sounds AWESOME. Then you realise that the plot is constantly undermining him, the crew is undermining him, seven of nine is undermining him and he's not really in control of the situation. He's Ensign Harry Kim once again. This was supposed to be the big pay off for Harry after 7 years of experience aboard Voyager but it ends up being a major disappointment. I felt seriously deflated after watching this episode. Number 4: Natural Law. Overall a rather mediocre episode. What makes it so high up this list? Because this episode is 3 episodes before Voyager ends! It's a waste of an episode with no character progression at all and no dopamine boosting pay off after so many years of character development. It was serious filler and it annoys me every time I think about it. Number 3: The Fight. The writers, realising that they had completely forgotten about the existence of Chakotay after season 4, decided in their infinite wisdom to make this episode. It's extremely boring and tedious. More so than usual. The aliens don't have character. The other characters don't get much of a look in. It's just bad. Devoid of entertainment. Number 2: Muse. I could probably easily interchange number 2, number 3 and number 4 on this list very easily because they all annoy me to no end. This is ANOTHER boring beyond belief episode. What gives it the number 2 spot? Because the main character of this episode is less interesting than Chakotay, none other than B'elanna Torres. The guest character for this episode is particularly uninteresting too and he's given significant screen time. So you have the winning combination of lots of screen time for a throwaway character who isn't interesting in the slightest with quite possibly the worst cast member of Voyager accompanying him. And number 1 on this depressing list is: 11:59. For every reason listed in this video including reasons such as how silly it was that Captain Janeway was reminiscing about her ancestor and her ancestor was basically a Captain Janeway clone herself. The boring man she interacts with in the bookstore is painfully boring. The dark storyline of big business managing to get its way by making the bookstore owner's girlfriend betray him and then corrupting the bookstore owner into losing his resistance to losing his livelihood. Wow. Just wow. Were the writers paid to write this?! -Shudder-.
Dishonorable mention should go to "Nothing Human," an episode where the moral stakes are based entirely on the fact that a hologram was created to look a Cardassian scientist and the crew holds the hologram responsible for the real scientist's crimes.
THE THAW: The crew attempts to rescue three aliens in stasis from a bizarre fear-based computer program with an annoying clown. How is that better than Fair Haven?
I agree that the clown is superficially annoying, but the episode is actually quite good if you look deeply into it. I recommend watching the Lorerunner's Rumination analysis on that episode, he does a great job of walking through the subtlety.
God Voyager really knew how to produce some unbearably bland episodes. At least you can laugh at Threshold, but even just hearing stuff like Fairhaven or 11.59 described in a video makes you cringe.
Spacedock unforgettable was the most boring for me. That’s how I remember it.
Ya and next generation knew how to pretend to be deep and talk around up its own ass for an hour.
Spacedock >=/
ha I think your Screen Name says it all. Hahahaha! Thank you for that...!
ha really now?
any proof of this?
The worst episode for me, was probably the Chakotay boxing one. Mainly because i'm not a fan of boxing at all, plus seemed very out of character for Chakotay to suddenly enjoy boxing. His interest in that sport was never mentioned before, or again in the whole series. He was always more about vision quests and spiritual stuff than that.
I just fucking hated Chakotay. Everyone says Neelix is the worst character, I highly disagree. At least Neelix tried to be interesting.
Also, to tell the truth, I actually like Neelix. I never found him annoying, just really friendly.
Because chakotay has always been into.. *rolls dice× Boxing!
I dont remember his hobby for boxing coming up before or after this episode.
That's the problem with episodic story telling. The lack of strong storyline makes little sense.
While I'm a fan of boxing I also hated that episode, I found it incredibly baffling the way it was executed and the conclusion was incredibly anticlimactic which is a theme for sadly a lot of voyager episodes. Great premise, baffling execution and anticlimactic ending
I really disliked 'Fury'. If they wanted to bring Kes back for an episode, did they have to make it so bleak? She was always kind and compassionate and they bring her back as a completely bitter old nut. That was so disappointing. Why couldn't she have joined forces with Voyager to fight a common enemy, and then they both happily go their separate ways afterwards?
The Belana episode was infuriating. No doctor nor leader would have given in to such extreme risks to reconcile a dream. As for Threshold, they act like nothing happened in the end. Those are traumatizing events! No coping nor ptsd?!
The episode with Amelia Earhart and the guy from Police Academy deserves an honorable mention imo.
You mean The 37s ?
Did anyone like Ex Post Facto the one where Tom is acused of murder and has to relive the victims memory
@@andreaabejuela8089 I didn't like it at the time but it's not that bad. Defo not the worst of season 1. Yourself?
On paper the 37s sounded amazing but it was big let down. But that was kinda the theme with voyager, they had all the good stories and scripts but didn't do much with it
I liked that one!
I'll say this for Threshold: it's very memorable. I watched the series as a kid and it is one of the few episodes that stuck with me because of how weird it was.
It's also an award winning episode!
Any of the Kazon episodes makes my list of worst episodes.
I agree with you there. I mean, 98% of Season Two was dominated with Kazon episodes. That's why I barely got into that season.
They had good episodes. I totally see what the writers were trying to do with them.
Yeah they also absolutely didn't interest me at all.
I'd love to have been there for the brainstorming session on the Kazon.
"I know, let's make Klingons!"
"But we already have Klingons!"
"...I know, let's make Klingons!"
"BRILLIANT!!"
"....and then later add some real Klingons again"
Threshold is so amazingly bad that every Star Trek fan owes it to themselves watch at least once.
My goodness, I forgot I left this comment. Well allow me to follow up, since I recently re-watched Threshold. Yes, it's terrible. But I found myself enjoying it anyways, kind of in a Spock's Brain kind of way. And I don't know if I would call it THE worst. Anyway, my comment still stands, you really need to watch this episode if you haven't.
TUVIX! In this episode Janeway literally murders a crewmate and it is somehow never brought up again!
The concept behind the episode is incredibly stupid, but I can't call it one of the very worst episodes, because the actor playing Tuvix himself does put in an extremely good performance. If he'd just been a random new alien instead of a fusion of two existing characters who then has to be separated in order to restore the status quo, this episode would have been fine.
The Naomi Wildman episode was either the first or second time I found Neelix enjoyable in the series. Can’t remember whether or not the episode in which he literally died came first. I find the episodes where he’s the comedic character insufferable but when he’s trying to be a caretaker for Naomi and later the Borg children it gives him more of a sense of purpose to the plot beyond being possessive of Kes or annoying to Tuvok. The episode where he dies too is good because it actually has dramatic tension
The episode where he died and was revived was first.
One of the worst episodes to me is "EXTREME RISK", and mainly because we are expected to believe that Torres has been long suffering from clinical depression? This is not a topic you can just mash into one episode. They should have built up to it, kind of like Paris' bad behavior in season 2. Or Garibaldis' drinking problem on Babylon 5!
Threshold was weird, but it was one of the only times that Star Trek went into full on Cosmic Horror mode, so I'll give it points for that.
comedic horror
I thought it was cool that Janeway raped Paris and abandoned her babies on a derelict planet.
Fury has no sense with the story, for me is the worst.
Same with Virtuoso. The Docs actions contradicted his character development. Lazy writing
Liked Fair Haven. I'm Irish and it captured rural Ireland. Barge Of The Dead was excellent!
True. But the welcome, friendliness of rural Ireland was accurate. Yet people are obsessed with visiting Dublin? Puzzling.
That's just you. We don't want toxic people here anyway.
Well, thankfully that's just you. We have no such criminality here.
Different generation. Completely.
You're pathetic. You saying we should condemn every German for the atrocities of Hitler? You have some serious growing up to do.
Threshold is The Room of Star Trek episodes. So perplexing it’s a classic.
Is it just me or does Star Trek really hate the Irish?
Preston Schock Yep, that TNG episode plus the 2 VOY episodes pretty much confirm it. Then there's O'brien......
I doubt Gene Roddenberry did- he was a charming Irish-American. Maybe some latent envy of Roddenberry, they could express after he was gone?
O'Brien must suffer...
Preston Schock Roddenberry was a dick
Don't forget O'Riley in The Naked Time. awful.
Threshold has to be positively the very worst episode of Voyager ever. I rather like to forget the episode actually exists. (Like I do with the entirety of STD)
Jeff Ledger it's actually so bad that it's considered among the worst Star Trek episodes ever made, right up there with Spock's brain
I would consider Star Trek Discovery to be actually Canon ( even deep down it's not IMO), then to watch "Thershold" ever again or even acknowledge it's existence right up there with Spock' Brain, or that DS9 episode were Quark became an transgender for some damn reason🤢.
Threshopd was such a disgrace to the canon that even the writers of the episode would favour for the episode to have never existied.
I liked Once Upon a Time tbh. The line about Captain Janeway jumping to warp after one more cup of coffee was pretty funny. True that Trevis & Flotter were annoying af, but I liked how they snuck in Wildman & her baby, Naomi. Sort of like how TNG slipped Keiko O'brien in where she didn't need to be. I always like seeing extra characters explored here & there.
Star Trek has a great cast of good supporting cast. Characters that work best at the sides.
Garak is a good example. He is best when trying to convince that he is just a tailor. His banter with Bashier, or the little feuds with Quark. The hostility towards Dukat. But an entire series about him would be too much to fill. Shran is similar in Enterprise, best when he shows up occasionally, but great. Same goes for Naomi.
And by the topic of side characters, I would've loved if Voyager had explored that a bit more. After all there is nobody else around in the delta quadrant, and even TNG hat the awesome episode "Lower Decks" that explored the setting from a different view.
Voyager could've done so much more with the conflict between the Starfleet and Marquis crew.
Or maybe an episode that shows how the life of the average crewman would look like.
Maybe in a setting that is not overly thretening, just to show how Janeway and Chakotay manage to keep the crew together when they are not opposed to the somthing like the Borg.
One of my biggest pet peeves with TV programmes is when characters are needlessly shoehorned into episodes just for fanservice I respect your opinion though 👏🏾
Threshold is an example of why you don’t let the Work Experience kid write your multimillion pound franchise.
even the staff admitted that episode was a mistake.
The guy who came up with the story ended up becoming president of New Line. Just saying (wink).
P Ferreira well that explains everything.
@GameHammer Classic Gaming I don't think he did too badly considering he came up with the plot for this story. Ha, ha!
Lets Have A Discussion The pound sterling is a ‘real’ currency and used in many countries. In fact it’s a also included in the currency basket.
The U.S. dollar index started in 1973, and today is a basket of six currencies; the euro, Japanese yen, Canadian dollar, British pound, Swedish krona and Swiss franc. The euro is by far the biggest weighting making up 58 percent of the basket.
Almost any episode focusing on Chakotay could reasonably be included.
Am I the only one who cheered to see Janeway order the cloying, annoying, and ridiculous Tuvix to literally stop existing! The only redeeming moment of this pointless, useless episode!
I really like that episode. I agree that Tuvix was a little bit annoying but the actual ethical dilemma of separating Tuvix back to Tuvok and Neelix or not was so interesting.
I HATE, love story, relationship stories, I wanna watch star trek/sci-fi, for other things and to get the FUCK away from SOAPS
You went back to Picard's "Truth" speech a couple of times but it seems you just ignored part of the speech:
"Personal truth".
Janeway experienced something that was life changing.
So did B'Elana.
And you may recall, Pickard experienced a few of those as well. Those experiences were real for them. They made them question and re-evaluate science and their own purpose.
Although I suppose they may have been boring to the "now" generation, they were certainly not boring to the "reality" generation.
"Shaka, when the walls fell".
Sorry, corthew, being from your so-called `reality´ generation (haha) myself I still think Rowan rightly picked some of Voyager's not so much boring but most of all bland and badly written episodes. He also points out correctly that some (not all) of their plots had real potential, which was being wasted due to dismal execution.
So, your ageless cultural critique, pitching the false stereotype of shallow contemporaries against the false stereotype of a more reality-grounded and experience-prone former generation, has no objective value, and only tells us something about yourself, and the resentments you harbor.
I liked your reminder of TNG's `Darmok´ episode, haven't seen that in a while, but it could also be called a kind of a Freudian Slip because the clichèd critique you offer could itself benefit from some difficult inter-generational bridgebuilding.
Timba his arms wide
no matter what Star Trek. I hate all their holodeck adventures and usually skip through those episodes. NO matter if its Picards fantasy about being a cliche detective, tom paris as proton - or janeway as english creepy nanny. The only holodeck fantasy that I thought funny was the doctors idea of a perfect family. And then they had to spoil that for him by let his "daughter" die slowly 😩 Just to prove him that he has the wrong idea how a family works? Very cruel.
ONCE UPON A TIME
the tree creature looked like
a different version of
GROOT
One I think you missed out is 'The Fight', where Chakotay communicates with some aliens via a boxing match... it's particularly stupid and pointless!
11:59 was one of my favourite episodes. Perhaps it was the soundtrack, but I found myself very invested in the drama.
And I guess I'm one of the few people who liked the holodeck Irish town, but I thought Spirit Folk was a really fun episode, too.
It wasn't my favorite but at the time I really liked it too as we could see another character's ancestry and with the gateway twist too.
Oh my....what an...interesting opinion....and completely wrong.
ViciousAlienKlown What a stupid fuck as an opinion is just that an opinion and isn't right or wrong.
The Best Stooge Ok, calling people names doesn't express much other than a lack of a vocabulary. 😎
Better yet, my comment wasn't even directed towards you, the best stooge. Not too slick.
To me, VGR is the weakest Trek series anyway.
It’s TNG Redux, only even blander, and TNG managed to also produce a number of flat or terrible episodes, despite its overall high quality.
But VGR has an even higher percentage of bad or average or filler episodes, it’s almost depressing. As if that’s not bad enough, even some of the good episodes have plot holes or cheats that make one reconsider its overall quality when rewatching. As it is, I only have a list of barely 80 watchable or good episodes, but at least I can get through the show faster, while pining over all that unrealized potential.
The warp 10 barrier was mentioned elsewhere (including on TNG), but Threshold is the only time in the 24th century's main timeline that it has been reached. It was exceeded in the 23rd century, but the accepted explanation is that the warp numbering system was altered at some point in the 100 years between, and it was exceeded in one or two alternate timelines in TNG.
Threshold's problem was not the warp 10 barrier, but the entire rest of the episode.
We see ships going past warp 10 (which isn't some space magic bullshit like it is in Threshold) multiple times in TNG.
Dovahkiin
Only in alternate timelines and various futures
Wrong again. Remember the Traveller?
Dovahkiin
Yes, and they never stated what speed it was when they warped to another galaxy or to that imagination realm (as I choose to call it).
I can't find an estimate of the speeds involved, but I recall seeing something years ago of something like 9.99999999.
weejockpoopongmcplop
That's a fair criticism, and one that is never overcome. It was said in the episode that it (effectively) puts them everywhere in the universe at once. The problem is therefore not in deciding when to stop, but in how to stop where you want to stop. There is no indication that they planned that far ahead.
Once upon a Time has an awesome moment where the Doctor, trying to change the subject on Naomi about her mom, seeing neelix came in and the Doctor says how great to see you neelix and Ethan Philips has the most amazing reaction to it cause almost everyone cant stand neelix so he's taken aback by the Doctor's statement and it keeps the episode from being god awful. One of the best moments of the show ever in that scene at least for me.
And Threshold is worth it for the wtf factor lol lizard babies
Off screen salamander sex, what's not to like?
The lizard babies were so cute! The makeup was good... the 37s episode is far worse.
How did Endgame not end up on here? How many times during the series did Janeway have the option to go back in time to stop the events that sent Voyager into the Delta Quadrant, and she always said no to it, due to the impact the Voyager already had on so many species during their journey. Essentially last part of that journey, in which Seven of Nine dies, all the impact Voyager would have had was ignored.
It was a fun episode, but a real cheap, quick cut excuse to conclude the series.
The part where Janeway is changing the traits of her holographic boyfriend was pretty funny. The part where Janeway says Delete the Wife was hilarious.
It sounded so bloody ruthless lol. She actually said something similar earlier in her 19th century holo-novel.
I actually really love 11:59 and rate it as a top Voyager episode, more or less precisely BECAUSE it's such a different thing. I enjoyed learning about Shannon O'Donnel, the commentary about how history can become sanitized and idealized over time, and how it resonated with Janeway. It just really worked for me, but I get why it doesn't for most people.
While I don't rate it as a top Voyager episode, I do like this episode for all the reasons you mentioned.
How dare you put Drive on this list. Drive for me was one of the fun episodes.
Stargate SG-1 did it better.
Direct to dvd CGI movies for kids did it better... And even then they're just ripping off Speed Racer.
@@Firthy2002 LOL i'm not the only one who noticed this. But I liked Drive
Furry should be number one. Not be because of how bad it is on its own. But because of how it screws up the plot. I just pretend this episode doesn't exist, and so should everyone else.
Jayneway and Paris having slug babies together was truly bonkers!
The drugs the writers did must have been laced with some pretty nasty sXXt. :-)
Lol yup fury made no sense - she goes a bit senile ...then decides to destroy voyager ...but then remembers she left of her own free will. What?!
Where was the episode with Tuvok trapped on the planet with reverse aging kids?
Jukrates That one wasn't that bad.
I HATE the "crashed the shuttle on a planet" episodes. There were a shocking amount of those in Voyager and I hate all of them.
Jukrates or the one with chakotay where he ends up in a war zone only for it to turn out to be not real. Such an anti climax
shooter downunder - That one felt like they were trying to rip off The Inner Light. Voyager tried to rip off TNG a lot.
It wasn’t that bad tbh i mean that is still quite an interesting one to me.. just because it shows a different side of him you normally don’t see in regular episodes.. well in my opinion at least
I'm rewatching voyager and stopped for a month because I'm having trouble getting through 11:59. At least the other bad episodes take place on Voyager in space with the show's characters. 11:59 feels like it comes from a completely different show. The only connection is that Kate plays both Janeway and the main character of that episode
My first introduction to Voyager was through the episode Threshold. Yeah it wasn't the best intro to a series.
Terrible episodes were "Tattoo" (by the author of the worst TAS episode, "Magicks of Megas Tu" - honestly, after that, WHY would they invite him back?!?), and the majority of the Harry-centric episodes - unfortunate, because I liked his character, and he deserved better episodes.
Threshold was so awful! As for the Warp 10 thing, it's supposed to be an infinite velocity. Theoretically, in Star Trek, if you could reach Warp 10 you would be EVERYWHERE at once; basically, you'd be God. Not even Q could accomplish that!
I'd imagine this would be extremely painful, for you and for literally everyone else in the universe.
Although Voyager has some good episodes it’s much weaker than TNG and DS9 for me.
Too many cheap costume aliens, weaker cast, way too many bad holodeck episodes.
Yep. I don't get the appeal of the show.
STAR TREK:
VOYAGER
episode
DRIVE
was the
FAST and the FURIOUS
before the
FAST and the FURIOUS
movies were created
and it was in space
To be fair most Voyager episodes were shite. Fury was Jennifer Lien doing her best Jennifer Lien impersonation... :D
I'm on S3 of a rewatch after 10 years and after watching Favorite Son I came searching to see if it made it onto any lists because damn that was a terrible terrible episode. That outshines most if not all of the episodes on this list imo. What a waste of an hour. While Threshold was in bad taste - why did they want to script salamander babies and what were they trying to say about our course of evolution, lmao - at least I didn't fall asleep watching it. I also thought Darkling wearisom along with Rise. I guess the issue I'm finding in general this far into the rewatch is that they fail to advance the characters in any satisfying sense and so the action of the episode ends up feeling pointless because there is no progress. For example Sacred Ground had potential to lead somewhere interesting if it had been a catalyst to Janeway actually questioning science and faith. It could have been interesting if in Coda the appearance of her 'father' had helped her deal with something unresolved that was impacting her in the present. At this point the Doctor is the only character who has shown any kind of steady progress and maybe Paris.
I'm doing the same and season 3 has terrible episodes, but also some great ones. You can understand why the ratings dropped the network wanted to change the show
@@sabercrosby8128 Yeah, there are some great episodes too but they did need to shake it up. Seven def got comparatively wonderful development which is prob why she was so popular after her arrival. I also have to say that Fury ended up being my most disliked episode. What an awful character assassination...
Late one night in the spring of 2000 (while a member of a nameless boyband) we were on the paramount lot attending an after party for a movie called Snowday. Anyway, having got talking to a very drunk Paramount exec about star trek, we quickly found ourselves being ushered into a locked sound stage, and when the lights went on-- it was the bridge of Voyager. An unforgettable experience. The bridge, Sickbay, ten forward- basically all of the main locations were backed onto one another and were smaller than you'd expect. On the sound stage across from it was a warren of endless corridors. I sat in Janeway's chair ( covered in see through plastic, as were all of the chairs) And my reason for boring you all with this story is that while there, I found and "stole" a call sheet which one of the cast had obviously left lying around, and the episode they were in the middle of making at the time was "Fury" which of course makes this list. I'm in agreement because despite such an amazing experience in my life being associated with that episode, it's still a steaming pile of shit. For me, The Doctor and Seven were the two standout characters.
Klingon episodes are on the whole really dull, they're an overused species that need to be left alone. One thing I really liked about Torres initially was her rejection of everything Klingon, despite the physical advantages it gave her she never wanted any part of them. As for her not getting over her issues, its the underlying failure of VOY in that pretty much everything is reset for the next episode because the producers or the studio or whoever thought that the audience could handle growth and development and continuing storylines, because we'd all get too confused and lost.
I kinda disagree with Sacred Ground. The reason it was all randomly vaugley spiritual stuff was because that's the kinda thing Janeway assumed she'd have to do. It doesn't excuse it for being bland but It is interesting in concept. The whole episode was about how a scientificly minded person like Janeway sees religion. How all of things in it can explained logically through science and thus it's just ritualistic and tradition. When she learns about the mystic of it from the weird guide lady (I can't exactly explain how she said it off memory) she begins to understand it more. In the end it isn't her not believing the truth, it's just her dissapointment at seeing everything being so clinically explained after having such an "interesting" experiance.
Unfortunately I would say the first episode Caretaker. I remember when I was 13 and I first watched the episode. Scratching my head thinking surely they used the array to get home and then left a bomb on the Caretakers array to blow up. Or why couldn't the Caretaker just leave a computer programmed to look after the Ocampa on the planet like a hologram.
Did you not notice that the way the caretaker transported them killed her on board doctor, pilot, and commander among others.. Why would they use it to go back knowing for sure some people would die again would it be worth it to get back fast knowing so many of the crew would for sure die? I wouldn't want to be under the captain that would be that insane... Also it would have left the Kazon with the array and let them commit genocide on the Ocampa is getting back fast and killing members of your crew worth it knowing you allowed a genocide to happen? As for why the caretaker couldn't leave something I am not sure but I assume part of the energy of his ship/array came from him and a hologram wouldn't have it it died with him. And why they couldn't leave a bomb there were other Kazon ships on the way and would be there shortly and Tuvok said it would take him time to even figure out how to send them back most likely they wouldn't have had time to do all that or even get sent back with Kazon reinforcements on the way.
I didn't watch till season 4 because of Caretaker. Don't feel bad.
Pretty sure with enough time the crew would've figured out a way to get everyone home safe and keep the Ocampa in a state where they could survive and defend themselves.
But plot demanded them to be stranded there, so they had to blow it up to not let the array fall into the wrong hands.
Pretty sure the Kazon would have blown them up before they had time to make a plan like that.
Ashes to Ashes was the worst Voyager episode for me. A character we never meet before Ensign Lyndsey Ballard died three years ago and given a space burial as is traditional for Starfleet. Unbeknownst to the crew of Voyager a race called the Kobali changed her human DNA as much as possible to become Kobali and reanimated her corpse. She lived as a Kobali all that time but secretly hated it and all she wanted to do was return back to Voyager. She does and it's not an easy adjustment to return back to her old life. Her Kobali father tracked her down and it first was begging for her to return but when she resisted they were prepared to take her by force and in the end she willingly returns with them. The problem I have is that at first Ensign Ballard insisted that she wanted nothing more than to return home but as soon as it becomes apparent it will not be a smooth transition she gives up immediately and Janeway allows she to give up and take the easy path. No one aboard Voyager seem realized that after years of being brainwashed that she would naturally want to return to her captors. It's called Stockholm Syndrome but that topic isn't even brought up at all .Janeway fought tooth-and-nail for Seven of nine because she knew Seven's Humanity was stolen from her just as this girl's was. The captain fought hard for Seven but not for Ensign Ballard. It seems to go against Captain Janeway's nature and did nothing for the show as a whole.
How did you ever pick only 10? The entire first two seasons are really, but really meh and then there's Fair Haven etc.
Also, B'Elanna doesn't need counseling, she needs banana pancakes obviously. :D
Entire series was a waste of time. There are only about 15 episodes I ever both rewatching
Seasons 5-7 was the worst.
Yeah, somewhat after Scorpion the level dropped. There are some good ones like "The Voyager Conspiracy" that plays with the ongoing continuity errors, "Blink of an Eye", the ironic "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy"and "Live Fast and Prosper" as well the mentioned "Shattered"
The rest of the last two seasons are pretty bad.
It is because we use the base-10 counting system and the half and the double of it. It's always 10 this or that...or 5 this or that...or 20 this or that. It is never 9 this or that...or 13 this or that. Our perception of reality is being limited by the counting system we employ. And we consider ourselves conscious beings? Really? We've go a long way to go before we actually exceed the sum of our programming. A long way.
on rewatch, season 1 was actually pretty good. Caretaker was a solid pilot, and Eye of the Needle, Jetrel, Phage, Faces were all excellent. Parallax, Heroes and Demons, and State of Flux are pretty good too. The rest are mostly alright, with only Cathexis, Time & Again, and perhaps Ex Post Facto being sub par.
S2 on the other hand was the absolute worst of the show.
I like Fair haven, Drive, Spirit Folk there all good(the rest are fair). Its ridiculous and I like holodeck episodes and Tom and B'ellana get MARRIED so it can't be bad.
I'd take any of these over Discovery or Picard.
Season 3 Picard wasn't too bad. Other than the white male characters were neutered or damaged and the chicks were in charge it was ok. At least put them on equal footing. Discovery is the worst offender of this philosophy. Pushing the LGTBQ agenda to maximum warp. Which turns off most the audience When your focus is pushing a message to the point your killing the storytelling it does not work. Most of Discovery is unwatchable. Season 4 ep with Tilly on planet with Cadets is a laughable unrealistic joke. Strange new worlds are trying to recapture TOS, with a sprinkling of course, of the woke message. if they ditched that it would be a good show.
Everytime i hear Jean Luc talking about truth i just hear
"Cap-Tain Jean-Luc Picard of the US-S En-Ter-Prise"
And wave my head from side to side.
Agrees with almost all but the Fair haven episodes. I really kinda liked them. The Hollo characters are funny and the doctors as a Priest is kinda fun too. And I don't think Neelix is so bad. When Kes was onboard he was, this jellousy he had was just bad.... But since Kes vanished form the show, I think Neelix even got a little better.
These episodes are so bad I can't sit through this video all at once. I can't handle being reminded of all of them.
Barge of the Dead gives us the best phrase ever: Born Again Klingon.
What about Course: Oblivion?
Here's a synopses.
In an earlier episode(Demon) some liquid meal life-forms gain sentience by copying the DNA of the crew of Voyager. We discover half way through Course: Oblivion that the crew of the Voyager we are seeing are the copies who ended up thinking they were the original Voyager crew. They suffer horribly as their bodies dissolve, fail to preserve their history and any documentation of their existence and then everyone dies in despair. THE END.
Lol: the sacred ground episode is literally what I think of when I hear I’m not religious but I’m spiritual. Glad I’m not the only one.
I agree with most of the episodes, but Barge of the Dead was one of my favorite episodes.
I wouldnt say they were bad. Just disappointing
This was an excellent watch! I'm surprised how many of these I've seen. Every entry cast me back 20 years to before dinner Voyager watching. A kind of weird bitter Nostalgia. I would definitely love to see more of these type of videos. More Stargate stuff would be great too. Keep up the good work :)
Hey man i really like your videos but you missed the point of once upon a time BIG TIME
The fact that neelix doesn't want to tell naomi about her mother is treated as the main conflict in the episode, even Janeway forces him to do so but he doesn't want to because of his personal struggle dealing with his family death. He is not doing the right thing but it's because he is missguided and the episode shows that
The other episodes were trully stinkers tho
Equinox - simultaneously the best and worst episode(s). Best, that it showcased decent writing, good acting and a thrilling plot. But then worst that it showed off alot of what was wrong with Voyager, the new crew that joined we never saw again / reset button at the end, Voyager had a comparatively super easy time in the delta quadrant, Janeway turning into an unnecessary hard character, semi-ruined the character from the earlier seasons. They threatened to push the boat out but ended up being very conservative and it was never the show it quite could have been.
Thank heavens for Stargate....
I love Threshold for the sheer audacity to go that stupid. It has some nice make up effects and body horror moments (Paris ripping his tongue out... wish that would have been permanent). I want a spin-off episode about the Janeway/Paris salamander babies.
Voyager is my favorite Star Trek, but yea. When they drop the ball, they drop the ball. In the words of Janeway at the end of Threshold "We will never speak of this again."
Though I disagree with you that these were the worst. Some of them. Yes. Definitely. But there are ones that I found way worse than some on your list.
I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually say that, although she definitely should. I almost always push for more continuity in Star Trek but this was definitely one event that should NOT be referenced again later.
1:24 I looked it up and apparently 11:59 started out as a potential Q episode, where Janeway realizes that Q was messing around with her ancestor. Then Q was replaced with Guinan. However, those aspects were eventually dropped and they decided to just focus on Janeway's ancestor. Joe Menosky stated, "Our original inspiration for this was to do an episode where we didn't see Voyager at all. All we saw was Kate Mulgrew playing a distant ancestor [of Kathryn Janeway]. The idea was to tell a quintessentially Star Trek story without any science fiction. I wrote a teleplay, and it was a very painful [script] to write, because our premise wasn't working. We realized that we couldn't tell a story just on Earth without having Voyager to ground us in some way. We ended up doing a third of the episode set on Voyager."
The worst by far is the one where Tuvok meets the reverse aging children. God that one was unbearable.
Nah, there's worst episodes.
I like the episode, but it could have been told in like 15 minutes
Actually, the Warp 10 thing has been an issue in Star Trek since they moved to a log scale system in TNG. Ships can travel at various levels of 9.9xxxx, but 10 is meant to be infinite speed, but like the current light barrier, it is meant to require infinite energy.
Actually, the Warp 10 barrier has been well established in the TNG & DS9 lore. Ships can achieve ever increasing levels of Warp 9.9999+, with ever increasing inputs of energy, but Warp 10 is impossible.....if only because of the amount of energy needed to achieve it.
A TNG novel called Vendetta deals with the effects of crossing the Warp 10 barrier much better ;).
I don't remember it ever being an established thing. In fact Voyager itself goes beyond warp 10 later in the show and no one ends up devolving.
Rowan J Coleman its established in all the TNG tech manuals....which I bought at the time. You sound surprised that Voyager had issues with Continuity ;).
Marcus Hicks. You seem to suggest the rest of the franchise didnt lol.
I posted this elsewhere but I think that in the case of All Good Things where the refit Enterprise is ordered to warp 15 that one of two things happened. This being after voyagers return the federation adopted their warp 10 tech to exceed 10 without the side effects but also without the infinite speed. They adopted some of the tech encountered that is faster than typical warp and simply extrapolated those speeds on the logarithmic warp scale for convenience.
Or most likely imo they are well into the warp 9.9xxxxx era where one end represents a comfortable cruising speed and the other a dangerous event. With either end sepperated by just a few decimal places. Thats the type of condition that requires a re scaling of the absolutely arbitrary warp scale.
And its something that has been done before so it makes a lot of sense.
Rowan, when did they top warp 10? They go stupidly fast via transwarp conduits, slipstream, etc. but at no point is Voyager's stated speed above warp 10.
They only went warp 9.999...9 or some other almost arbitrary almost-10 figure.
OriginalPiMan. In the episode all good things, when picard is traveling through time, when they are aboard the riker's ship, after crushers ship explodes, right before crusher sneaks up to sedate picard, riker says to go to warp 13!
I see that Threshold is hated by everyone here however I am not sure why. I am not saying it is a great story or well executed, but salamanders to procreate, don't they? I am surprised Favorite Son did not make this list. Kim is one of the most under utilised characters in trek and this so called Harrycentric episode was a shocker. Also the one where he commands an alien ship only to find out that the aliens he is helping are the bad guys, is not great either. I actually think Once Upon A Time is a good episode. The response that Neelix gives when the captain says he needs to tell Naomi what has happened is one of the best scene of the whole series. And he was right. Janeway had no idea about grief as a child she did not lose a parent when she was young and Ethan Phillips delivery of this response is his best work in the whole of Trek.
Broooooooo! How could you forget "The Thaw"? An entire episode with silly space clowns. This episode always makes me face palm.
THAT episode FREAKS me the HELL out.
Agree, I hate that episode.
The only redeeming quality for the episode was the ending
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Lol that one was hilarious if it's the one I'm thinking of... Isn't that where the "kids" end up being elderly adults who just reverse age and now have to go into some cave thing to die? Additionally, I think Voyager could easily have a "Top 20 Worst Episodes" list & still have room to spare.
Not to say the show was bad, only that it had a sizable amount of clunkers that are worth mentioning as truly awful episodes.
I've heard people be complementary about "the Thaw", but I can't understand why. It was like a 45 minute obnoxious headache that didn't make sense. It was like a very very BAD attempt at a David Lynch vibe.
Only 10?
ah yes, Threshold. The episode where Tom Paris invents a ship that goes infinity miles per hour. And they think this could bring them home somehow, not that what actually happened was any more likely mind you.
Fair Haven...I agree. Don't really like that one either.11:59 wasn't bad though! It's about the past..doesn't have to be about the future.
Totally disagree about Sacred Ground: one of the best ones of Voyager IMO because Janeway questions her scientific reasoning in this episode!
Once. Upon a Time-not a favorite of mine either..however I liked the holodeck part of it. :)
Barge of the Dead-totally disagree with you!!! LOVED this Bellanna centered episode. She's not whining! She's facing an inner conflict!! I loved this whole episode immensely-the costuming and the acting was wonderful.
Drive: a good one for me as well. I loved that it was about a space race. :) B'Ellana Torres wasn't a complainer at al!! She was being sarcastic, witty, and not to mention pretty funny.
Fury-I did agree with you on this one. Didn't really like it much. Didn't like how they did the Kes character. Very unnecessary.
Sprit Folk-yep agree. Meh. Nuff said
Elogium-disagree-LOVED this one! One of my most watched ones of Voyager! So interesting to watch I thought.
Threshold-yep crazy as hell. But Robert McNeill did say that if you take a mind numbing substance before watching this episode...you'll appreciate it more. LOL!
Wow, you like Elogium and Sacred ground, my mind is blown. And that's hilarious that Tom's actor actually said that about Threshold, I bet the studio was annoyed with him for it.
The problem here is “character episodes” where the writers run out of scifi ideas and resort to telling us boring details about the characters. Another problem is “meet the character” episodes where you have to get to know one of the characters and find out details about them that are never relevant again... zzzzzz...
For most viewers above the age of 20, a sci-fi hook doesn't mean very much unless you have some character relevance to go along with it, whether focusing on a particular individual or just having a plot that affects all the characters at once. But I do agree that the episodes that really focus in on a particular character then suffer a great deal when the show doesn't acknowledge any of this later. Seven of Nine is the ultimate example of this - they enjoyed the "Seven learns a lesson about humanity" thing so much that every one of these episodes ends with an unstated "...and then she forgets it completely so that we can do this again later".
BARGE OF THE DEAD
haven't you ever heard of
CHARON
he would ferry the dead to
their final judgment
2.30: William Shatner in AIRPLANE 2 "Pretend nothing is happening and hope everything is alright in the morning"!!!!..LOL
They should have taken Tom's and captain's salamandra babies back to Voyager. 😂
That's actually what bothers me since I've seen the episode. I mean, of course they were transformed, but those baby salamanders are literally their children, as weird as it sounds. Why would they abandon them? Surely they would've found some place on the ship for them.
Axemaster they were technically human they could of been turned back into normal kids
It may be boring, but at least Fair Haven has the classic evil Janeway line, "Delete the wife."
I'm surprised "Nemesis" didn't get a mention. My glimpses cannot tolerate that episode. Why is Chakotay, a former Maquis captain, giving speeches about how violence isn't the answer in this episode clearly about the dangers of wartime propaganda?
Lol binge watching / skipping episodes now in Netflix
I quite liked 11:59 actually. On the other hand I really hate the episode where Tuvok kills a fake Neelix on the holodeck because HE DIDN'T KILL NEELIX FOR REAL!
"Fairhaven" - Captain Janeway falls in love with a Hol O'Gram.....
You win a novelty green Internet....
I hated the episode where the doc finds out that they tampered with his memory - a hologram suffering a nervous breakdown - give me a break. To me this is where it started to Jump the shark.
this show is just kind of lame in general compared to DS9 and next gen
That's the magic of voyager. It wasn't very good but people still loved it. Strange one.
@@sabercrosby8128 fax
I have to disagree with Barge of the Dead. That was really, really good Klingon-centric episode.
5:17
The screen says 7 but the voice says 6
awww. some of my favorite episodes are on this list. I don't see why people didnt like salamader Paris and Janeway having freaky evolution babies. I just love how everyone tries to pretend it never happened since it is never brought up again, but you just know it is brought up all the time in-universe.
This must have been a hard episode to make.. Just 10.
I totally disagree about the episode, Sacred Ground. The whole episode puts the topic Faith vs Science.Very interesting topic that most people, like you, fail to see or understand.
For me, the worst episode was „The Thaw“, simply because of how annoying the constant screams and laughter was.
That's a valid point, but the annoying-ness was probably a very deliberate stylistic choice, since the goal was more or less to drive the captive Voyager crew to madness. Sadly, this was pointed at the audience as well much more than it should have been.
Top 10 worst episodes of Star Trek Voyager in my opinion:
Number 10: Basics Part 1 and 2. I am not keen on the Kazon but this episode was just tedious. The redeemed murderer storyline didn't really wash with me, Seska is just too much of a pantomime villain to be taken serious and the convenient plot for regaining control of the ship was laughable. Not to mention the boring sand planet that they tried and failed to inject some interest into.
Number 9: Fair Trade. It's a Neelix episode. Unlike most Trekkies, I am neutral, borderline appreciative of Neelix as a character. He's an interesting yet flawed character in my opinion. But this episode was plain boring. We all knew that nothing of consequence would happen to Neelix and the plot duly served us nothing. Not quite as boring as some episodes further down this list but it's still an episode with limited excitement factor.
Number 8: Real Life. I love The Doctor. He is my favourite character. In fact, this would probably be number 1 on the list if it didn't have the Doctor's presence in it and if they gifted it to a less interesting character like B'elanna for example. But the plot is awful. Doctor makes perfect family. Doctor realises perfect family isn't realistic. Doctor has melodramatic finale of what true family is about. Yuck. One to avoid.
Number 7: The Disease. Harry Kim is an above average character. He actually has character personality progression going on in later seasons too which is more than what can be said of some characters. But this episode was rubbish. Felt like a teen drama. The Captain's interaction with Harry when reprimanding him was particularly weird. Did I mention that I hate teen dramas? Harry's naivety is an interesting character trait most of the time but in this episode, it was milked to sick bucket level. Yuck (another one to avoid).
Number 6: Virtuoso. Ridiculous plot line meet most irritating characters ever. The only thing that saves this episode from going any further up the list is the humour injected by the crew when the Doctor gets too big for his boots. Strangely the Doctor isn't given much to do in this episode either. The lines given to him are uncharacteristic of him by this point of the Voyager timeline and he is truly a reactionary character in this episode. It's just weird. Combine that with the first sentence I wrote and you have a recipe for a bad episode.
Number 5: Nightingale. Harry Kim, captain of his own vessel and issuing commands to his crew. Have I got your interest yet? It sounds AWESOME. Then you realise that the plot is constantly undermining him, the crew is undermining him, seven of nine is undermining him and he's not really in control of the situation. He's Ensign Harry Kim once again. This was supposed to be the big pay off for Harry after 7 years of experience aboard Voyager but it ends up being a major disappointment. I felt seriously deflated after watching this episode.
Number 4: Natural Law. Overall a rather mediocre episode. What makes it so high up this list? Because this episode is 3 episodes before Voyager ends! It's a waste of an episode with no character progression at all and no dopamine boosting pay off after so many years of character development. It was serious filler and it annoys me every time I think about it.
Number 3: The Fight. The writers, realising that they had completely forgotten about the existence of Chakotay after season 4, decided in their infinite wisdom to make this episode. It's extremely boring and tedious. More so than usual. The aliens don't have character. The other characters don't get much of a look in. It's just bad. Devoid of entertainment.
Number 2: Muse. I could probably easily interchange number 2, number 3 and number 4 on this list very easily because they all annoy me to no end. This is ANOTHER boring beyond belief episode. What gives it the number 2 spot? Because the main character of this episode is less interesting than Chakotay, none other than B'elanna Torres. The guest character for this episode is particularly uninteresting too and he's given significant screen time. So you have the winning combination of lots of screen time for a throwaway character who isn't interesting in the slightest with quite possibly the worst cast member of Voyager accompanying him.
And number 1 on this depressing list is:
11:59. For every reason listed in this video including reasons such as how silly it was that Captain Janeway was reminiscing about her ancestor and her ancestor was basically a Captain Janeway clone herself. The boring man she interacts with in the bookstore is painfully boring. The dark storyline of big business managing to get its way by making the bookstore owner's girlfriend betray him and then corrupting the bookstore owner into losing his resistance to losing his livelihood. Wow. Just wow. Were the writers paid to write this?! -Shudder-.
I was expecting macro-virus.
Loved that ep. The music and lighting made it like a horror movie. Spooky episode. And I like when Janeway goes rambo
Dishonorable mention should go to "Nothing Human," an episode where the moral stakes are based entirely on the fact that a hologram was created to look a Cardassian scientist and the crew holds the hologram responsible for the real scientist's crimes.
THE THAW: The crew attempts to rescue three aliens in stasis from a bizarre fear-based computer program with an annoying clown.
How is that better than Fair Haven?
That episode actually heavily reminded me of TOS.
I agree that the clown is superficially annoying, but the episode is actually quite good if you look deeply into it. I recommend watching the Lorerunner's Rumination analysis on that episode, he does a great job of walking through the subtlety.
Threshold is the only bad Star Trek episode I know of that more often being a smile to the face of fans than a grimace. It’s one of a kind