Rating: Summary: The new excitement starts from this season Review: This reason introduces new role of 7 0f 9 and the conflict with Borg. I like those crippy green Borg domes and captain Janeway.
Rating: Summary: The last best year Review: Voyager - Season 3Voyager's second season left impossibly high standards, and season number three came darned close to succeeding them. The show put forth some of its most ambitious and intriguing ideas, it tried out a number of things, some of which worked well, others, not so well, but the diversity displayed here was unmatched before and certainly never would be again. The season begins with the conclusion to the excellent Basics cliffhanger, where the crew managed to (surprise!) escape being stranded and retrieve their ship. Immediately after this comes the 30th anniversary tribute episode, "Flashback," which was okay, but not nearly as fun (or captivating) as Deep Space Nine's "Trials and Tribble-ations." Another highlight was the popular "Future's End" two-parter, which had the crew hobnobbing in L.A., circa 1996. (And how like another planet that can seem!). Fans of continuity were happy to see the two renegade Ferengi that went through the unstable wormhole in TNG return in "False Profits" which, like many Ferengi episodes, was comic in nature (Evidently, there are new rules of acquisition!). The best episode of the season, though, is "Fair Trade." I'm not a big Neelix fan, but here he is put into a very palpable moral quandary. He becomes convinced that his crew doesn't want him around anymore, so he tries to barter for a map to a huge unexplored region (in order to make himself indispensable), which leads to his involvement with smuggling, narcotics trafficking and murder. Even while he unwittingly gets himself into huge trouble (and gets others implicated instead of him), one can sense his agony as he goes forward with a conspiracy that continues to grow progressively deeper until he is so enveloped in guilt that he has to do something. This is more than just a mere morality play, though; it is a solid hour of television, and even funny, in a darkly ironic, twisted way. The Doctor takes some interesting turns as well: he becomes a homicidal maniac (Darkling) and a father (Real Life), and continues to dispense wonderful dry humor. "Rise" is a combination edge-of-your-seat thriller and murder mystery, "Worst Case Scenario" is a holodeck malfunction episode that works and features a resurrection of Seska (one might say that it works because of a resurrection of Seska, but I did like the story, and for a holodeck malfunction episode, it packed a few surprises), and the season ends with the new threat of a race more powerful than the Borg in "Scorpion." All in all, this was an enjoyable year of Star Trek, and it comes highly recommended.
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