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Star Trek Voyager - The Complete First Season

Star Trek Voyager - The Complete First Season

List Price: $129.99
Your Price: $103.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Solid first season of a really good show
Review: "Voyager" was a great show in that fans got to go "trekking" back into space after having been stationed on "Deep Space 9" for a while and saying goodbye to the"The Next Generation." These new "Star Trek" adventures would take place in a whole new quadrant of the universe - the delta quadrant - and would lead to a fresh new set of stories that didn't have to necessarily rely on what had gone before. A lone Federation ship and her crew having to deal with a whole new way of life, and many years before it could get home definitely appealed to me. Also the fact that a female captain was finally cast in a leading role was certainly an excellent move.

My rating is for 4 out of 5 stars because I find the packaging annoying. I don't like this split, clear slip-case, or whatever you want to call it, deal. As these DVD's are $100 or more, better care should be taken in the way the package functions and in its appearance. The DVD's are just plain old silver with no fancy pictures on them, which is weird because DS9 had illustrated discs. I guess I just expect a little bit more when it comes to packaging and the fact that this set only has 5 discs (only 15 episodes) I feel a little bit skunked, considering the price. Alas, the collector in me will eventually fork over money I don't have because I am an inveterate nerd.

Overall I enjoyed the first season of "Voyager." The extras were great and I finally got to see who was originally cast for the role of Captain Janeway and why she was wrong for the role.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Star Trek Voyager Season 1 - A promising first season!
Review: In this different but wonderfully well crafted boxed set of Star Trek Voyager season one; fans of Star Trek Voyager are treated to its first season which, in comparison with the other series, is a very good season. Of course, Voyager benefits greatly from the mistakes made during the first seasons of Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine. With this great first season, Voyager isn't struggling to establish a series or establish a framework to work within, that's already been set up both those two other exceptional series.

Voyager's first season albeit a short one, does a wonderful job of establishing the premise of the series and establishing the characters that will inhabit the imaginations of fans for the next seven years. One of the better aspects of this season is it doesn't suffer from some of the mistakes made during the second season as in that season they concentrated a little too heavily on the Kazon, which for most fans was a major detractor as I know I was and most fans were asking, when are they ever going to get out of and away from Kazon space.

Of interest to me about this first season and the series as a whole is the series producer's perfect decision to captain this new vessel with a strong female character in Captain Kathryn Janeway, which was a welcome decision that was a long time coming but a definitive eventuality.

The characters of Star Trek Voyager:

Captain Kathryn Janeway - Played brilliantly by Kate Mulgrew, Janeway is a strong and brilliant engineer and sciences minded commanding officer. Among her strongest features is also her principles which lead her to the decision to save the Ocampa by destroying the Caretaker's array in the premiere episode which results in stranding her crew and the crew of the Maquis ship in the Delta Quadrant with a 70,000 light year trip home to which she vows to her newly combined crew that she will get them home... After watching the special feature with Genevieve Bujold as Janeway, one simply cannot imagine her having been in this role!

Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) - Maquis leader and former Starfleet officer; he is a member of a Native American tribe which relocated to what later became the DMZ between the Federation and the Cardassians. When the treaty went bad for his homeworld, he left Starfleet to fight with the Maquis. As Janeway's first officer, he must tread the thin line between Maquis principles and rigid Starfleet codes.

Lieutenant Commander Tuvok (Tim Russ) - Vulcan Starfleet security officer who is well aged and to whom many aboard Voyager but especially B'Elanna look upon as a mentor. Without his counsel, Janeway would be lost.

Lieutenant Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) - Former Starfleet officer that ran into trouble and fled to the Maquis only to end up in a Starfleet prison. He is a superior pilot and helms Voyager through thick and thin. This is the Captain Kirk of the crew when it comes to womanizing...

Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) - Fresh from Starfleet Academy; at the outset of the series he is very green in the role of operations officer but look for this character to mature rapidly when faced with everything the crew must face in their journey home.

Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) - Half Klingon and half Human former Maquis now Chief Engineer. Until Seven of Nine shows up, look to this character for some of the strongest non Janeway stories as she continues to struggle between her Klingon and Human sides to achieve some form of inner peace.

The Doctor (Robert Picardo) - Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH Mark I). Look for this character to provide some of the most poignant and hilarious scenes throughout the seven year run.

Neelix (Ethan Phillips) - A Talaxian who helps Janeway during "Caretaker" and along with Kes becomes members of Voyager's crew. This character will most certainly provide some of the most memorable episodes throughout the series run as he takes on the roles of Ambassador, Head Cook and Morale officer.

Kes (Jennifer Lien) - Ocampan who is rescued during "Caretaker" and is, at the outset of the series, Neelix's companion. During her short time on Voyager she takes on the role as the Doctor's assistant. The Ocampan's only live for nine years but her part only lasts for three years as she joins the Denise Crosby and Terry Farrell club.

Standout episodes:

Caretaker - I list this one as it does, as a premier episode, a great job of introducing the series even that much more so than the premier episodes of TNG and DS9.

Emanations - This is a highly intriguing episode which goes where few Star Trek episodes dare to go, into "religion" and the afterlife.

Heroes and Demons - This episode does a wonderful job of establishing itself and future episodes in which the Doctor will be the prime player.

Faces - This is an extremely fascinating episode that does a superior job in establishing some of B'Elanna's back story while telling a poignant tale.

Jetrel - This is an extremely poignant story about Neelix and the destruction of his home world's moon during a costly war in which the Talaxian's enemy used a weapon of mass destruction.

I highly recommend this series to any and all fans of good Sci-Fi from the universe of Star Trek. This is a great series that should be given a chance by all fans of Star Trek. {ssintrepid}

Episode List:

Caretaker

Parallax
Time and Again
Phage
The Cloud
Eye of the Needle
Ex Post Facto
Emanations
Prime Factors
State of Flux
Heroes and Demons
Cathexis
Faces
Jetrel
Learning Curve

Special Features:

-Braving the Unknown: Season One
-Voyager Time Capsule: Kathryn Janeway
-The First Captain: Bujold
-Cast Reflections: Season One
-On Location with the Kazons
-Red Alert: Visual Effects Season One
-Launching Voyager on the Web
-Real Science with Andre Bormanis
-Photo Gallery
-Some hidden clips

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great start for an often overlooked or maligned series
Review: Season one of Voyager has several excellent episodes. The show really hit its stride in seasons four and five but this set was very enjoyable to watch. I know some people have complained about the packaging and such but, it holds the discs well and takes up little space on the shelf...the cosmetics don't really matter to me. The content is what is important and I think the cast led by Kate Mulgrew and the stories seemed even more engaging than I remembered. Hopefully the releases of the remaining seasons will come as promised over the next 9 months.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Love the series but......
Review: Like all Star Treks the series starts a bit in the stupid goofy story way but evolved into one of my favorite Star Trek series.

The reason I give it a 4 star rating is because of:
1) this is the worst package I have encountered, hate it (the case). Deep Space 9 was the best packaging.
2) The whole star trek series is totally a rip off cost wise. twice the price of all other series. (greedy!!!)
I think I'll buy bootlegs of Enterprise since they have already taken more money than they are all worth.

I love watching series this way...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: They tortured Trek before they killed it
Review: Once upon a time, I used to like Trek. I'm a fan of sci-fi, so it's just natural I guess. But this show really ended that affection once and for all.

First, Janeway. She's like a Saturday Night Live parody of a "strong woman" character. Every cliched way of making a character appear strong or smart is taken to laughably absurd levels. She knows more about [insert technobabble here] than someone who has three advanced degrees in [insert technobabble here]. She has this sense of morality - for instance, if there's two ways to get out of a situation, one way is slightly unethical, the other way will almost certainly result in the destruction of the ship and death of the crew, well, she chooses the second way every time. Besides getting incredible boring because this is played out in almost every single episode, it makes for an extremely one-dimensional character. There's never any internal conflict, and without internal conflict you don't have a character, you've just got a sermon. After a few seasons, Janeway became the most self-righteous, sanctimonious character ever portrayed on television. Yet self-righteousness is a pretty pathetic personality trait when all you've got to base it on is some percieved presumption of superiority, aka egomania. It would have been ever so interesting if anyone on this show had ever questioned anything, but alas, "questioning" would require thought, and that's not done here.

As far as the rest of the characters, as is well documented,they didn't even bother to read the scripts. They walked around like cardboard cutouts mouthing lines. The best example of this would have to be the romance between Paris and Torres - I've seen more passion between brothers and sisters in an After School Special. There's just absolutely no heart or soul to this thing.

And then there are the plots. Basically there are three of them.

1) Voyager blasts the crap out of Borg vessels. Never mind that when Voyager encounters vessels 1/100th as powerful as the Borg, it's a fair fight. So one would think...

2) 7 of 9 becomes more human. These are always particularly ironic, for everyone on Voyager acts like Federation Drones; they rarely show any emotion at all. 7 of 9 is really the only one to show emotion, so she's the one who must be taught to be more human. Of course, after god only knows how many of these episodes, she's always back to her original self by the beginning of the next one.

3) [insert technobabble here] goes wrong at the beginning of the episode. Everyone walks around looking worried for the next 40 minutes. Then, Torres or 7 of 9 come up with the idea of [insert technobabble here], which saves the day 1 second before the ship is destroyed.

Pretty much all plots involve Janeway taking the "moral" choice, which puts the crew in extreme danger, and if they survive the first half of the episode, she redoubles her efforts in the second half. Seriously, this woman couldn't possibly do more to try to kill off her crew. But, viewed in an "After School Special" lesson in simple minded morality sense, I guess it's preachy. Er, I mean educational.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: The beginning of the end
Review: Before I discuss the series, let me say that this set is way over priced. $90.00 for 15 episodes (ep 1 is 90mins) is about $45.00 too much.

Voyager was at best hit and miss. Good seasons were ones that had 1 or 2 good episodes and hopefully less than half sucked. Once in a great while they'd actually have a great episode.

Watching the show, you couldn't help but think of Janeway as Star Fleet's Giligan. I can't count the number of times they had a way home, but she'd find a reason why they shouldn't take it.

Looking back, it's clear that Voyager marked the beginning of the end of Star Trek. Berman simply has no ideas, and he's dragged Brannagh down to his level. Instead of interesting shows with new ideas and stories, they gave us recycled TNG over and over again. That trend has continued on Enterprise.

The best thing I can say about Voyager is that it kept Berman's hands off of Deep Space Nine. As a result, Steven Ira Behr, Ronald Moore and many other talented writers were able to make a Star Trek that took chances week after week. They created characters you could care about and story lines that were intrigued the viewer week after week.

Save your money. Buy the TNG sets. Better still, buy DS9 (arguably the best Trek series to watch on DVD). If you have both of those, give the money to charity or use it to start a fire on a cold winter night, but don't support the mediocrity that is Star Trek: Voyager.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Did not come with Season 1 Disc 2 !!!!!
Review: The series is great!! but... Direct from supplier the packaged set came with 2 disc number 4's.... and no season 1 disc 2.

I have disc 1 3 4, 4, and 5.. ARHHHGGA!!!

other than that? its GREAT!!.. but please check to make sure they have fixed this packaging problem before you buy.. the stores won't take back opened sets... ah ha!

Damon.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: My opinion for paramount
Review: I have not bought this product nor do I plan to. Now here are my reasons. I refuse to pay for 15 episodes, poor special features and poor packaging what I paid for full seasons with great special features. Not to mention the whole wrong and multiple disk problem.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Yeah, right
Review: First off, I must say Voyager's premise was not developed in a chat room. Next I must say you nuts who are griping about how "awful" it is. I must say, in my oppinion it is wonderful. The packaging is SUPERB! a nice DVD booklet inside of a weird cool looking orange transparent case with a pretty picture. Although the episodes are few, they are great and are made up for with special features. I definately would recommend this product to anyone longing for Voyager, I love it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: How Voyager was Invented -- the Untold Story
Review: Almost all possible opinions have already been aired on the DVD release and series. But one of the reviewers wondered that the DVD offered no insight on "how and why" Voyager was developed ... I can supply some pieces of that puzzle.

Back in 1989, I was a graduate student at the University of Texas, discussing ST:TNG with two people who said they worked on that show. This was via FidoNet, a national bulletin board system that ran off individual people's computers, not the Internet's Usenet system.

I was harshly critical of the show and, in particular, cut loose after they aired an episode in which, I believe, Counsellor Troi's mother caught up to the starship Enterprise in a shuttle craft (early summer of 1989).

Finally, one of them asked me "Well, what do YOU think we should do?" So I posted back that they needed to take a starship and dump it on the other side of the galaxy where there was no Federation infrastructure to support them and the crew had to struggle to survive and make their way home; no ferrying ambassadors back and forth, no parents of the bridge crew catching up to the ship in a shuttle craft, and so on.

I expected them to argue with me, after all the criticism I had leveled against their show (ST:TNG), and their previous defense, but instead they DISAPPEARED and I never saw them again on FidoNet.

A few years later, ST:TNG ended and I tuned into Voyager in 1995. The ship was immediately dumped on the other side of the galaxy and I thought "Here's a promising idea ... hmmmm.... say, wait a minute ... this is pretty familiar. Whoa!"

Other things that link the origin of Voyager to the FidoNet discussions with ST:TNG staff:

#1) In 1989, as I laid out the premise of what was to be the next series to the people who claimed to work on ST:TNG, the Voyager spacecraft flyby of the planet Neptune was major news (providing the name of show in the same time-frame as the discussion).

#2) The fact they stopped posting and disappeared immediately after I suggested the new premise.

#3) The subsequent watered-down implementation of Voyager series. That is, they got a premise, but they didn't really undertsand it, as far as intent. The series could almost have occurred in the Alpha quadrant; the fact that they are on the other side of the galaxy, all alone, didn't have the continuous impact on the story-lines you would expect.

I think that if the developer's had originated the idea, they would have better understood the radical implications and intent behind setting the story outside Federation space. Voyager was "normal" Star Trek with a different crew which occasionally mentions they want to get home.

Haven't pursued acknowledgement or money, but that's the story. I do have a floppy disk from my old Amiga computer in which I saved all the messages I wrote from those years. Now if I can just recover the encryption key and get the names of the folks I was corresponding with ...


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