Let’s be fair, just about every holodeck episode in every show is a “watch this once then never again” kind of episode. Doesn’t matter if it’s TNG, DS9, or Voyager, as soon as you realize it’s a holodeck episode your eyes glass over and your face assumes whatever your personal version of “resting removed face” is and then you contemplate if you are going to subject yourself to this torture or skip. lol. Same with time travel episodes imo. Like I just don’t even include them in the rankings.
As for the endings… Yeah, it could have been better but idk, I don’t think it was too terrible. I honestly think it’s still less ridiculous than DS9 ending where Sisko ascends and becomes a magic wormhole fairy or some shit. Like the war ending was the real ending and would have been perfectly fine. Then they tack on this thing at the ends you’re just like “uhhhhhh, wut?” I think Voyager using the Borg wormhole things wasn’t a terrible play but I do think the whole “explodes out of the sphere in front of the fleet in perfect condition and then cut to ending” was ridiculous. Idk what else they’d do though. Maybe just have Voyager pop out with the sphere behind it and the whole fleet just shreds it. Idk.
DS9 only did that once (to my recollection) with “Our Man Bashir” and it was fucking glorious, if only for Garak acting as an inverse wingman. And the supervillain Sisko was very memeable too.
Time travel wise, DS9 did it twice (again, to my recollection) first with the Bell Riots which was pretty decent in terms of depicting where western ‘civilization’ is heading in the 21st century, alas they were unable to really hammer home the point as to why things became like that, but the subtext is kind of obvious. The second time was the anniversary show where they crossed over with the original series which was, frankly, how you should approach that show in my opinion - with some fucking respect, unlike what trek has done to it recently. That was also a great episode.
Endings: What You Leave Behind has me in tears every time, which I honestly can’t say about many shows. The parting of ways of so many characters really hit me (I watched the show as it was airing) as these characters were a family by then. Yeah the Sisko/Dukat/Prophets/Pah-Wraiths thing was all kinds of dumb, but it was, tbh the only way I can figure to end that whole ‘thing’, I think Sisko being space jesus was sorta leading them in that direction the whole time and it was just a matter of how dumb it would be, not if it would be dumb. I honestly think they did worse by Dukat with that arc. He should’ve been tried for war crimes by the Bajorans. Harrumph
Voyager’s ending was not bad in and of itself, rather that it came out of nowhere, that episode could have been done most anywhere in the last couple seasons and it would work almost perfectly (except B’elanna being preggers I guess). There was no build up to it. With DS9 there was the ongoing war effort, with Voyager, the show was, like TNG, heavily episodic, with very little allowed to carry over from one episode to the next, so you could kinda slot any story anywhere almost. That and all the magic future tech just kinda… ruins any stories you could want to tell after that as it completely fucks with the balance of power now that the Feds have future tech.
My problem with Voyager wasn’t really that it was bad (though it had its fair share of bad episodes and mediocre ones, more than DS9 or TNG imo), but rather that it could have been so much more. Apparently the writers originally planned for the Year of Hell to be an actual year - i.e. a season-long arc with Voyager gradually being pummeled to shit over many episodes, but orders from on-high scuppered that. Berman was notoriously averse to what DS9 was doing, and it’s telling that his biggest input on that show was getting Terry Farrell to quit cause he was such a creep, and him personally putting a stop to the best gay couple in all of Trek (Bashir/Garak). Ronald D. Moore later basically did what Voyager should have been, with the BSG reboot - characters dying or suffering permanent injuries. Relationships forming and breaking, Galactica gradually taking damage that can’t just be repaired because they don’t have a dock to put into, until by the end, the ship is a floating hulk. Voyager could just magically be spacedock-fresh every episode. (and yes I know that was so they could reuse footage of the ship)
P.S. Voyager was my first experience with Trek really, other than seeing the odd bit of TNG here and there, so I have some residual fondness for it too, I’m not just bashing it out of 20 year old fan hatred
Let’s be fair, just about every holodeck episode in every show is a “watch this once then never again” kind of episode. Doesn’t matter if it’s TNG, DS9, or Voyager, as soon as you realize it’s a holodeck episode your eyes glass over and your face assumes whatever your personal version of “resting removed face” is and then you contemplate if you are going to subject yourself to this torture or skip. lol. Same with time travel episodes imo. Like I just don’t even include them in the rankings.
As for the endings… Yeah, it could have been better but idk, I don’t think it was too terrible. I honestly think it’s still less ridiculous than DS9 ending where Sisko ascends and becomes a magic wormhole fairy or some shit. Like the war ending was the real ending and would have been perfectly fine. Then they tack on this thing at the ends you’re just like “uhhhhhh, wut?” I think Voyager using the Borg wormhole things wasn’t a terrible play but I do think the whole “explodes out of the sphere in front of the fleet in perfect condition and then cut to ending” was ridiculous. Idk what else they’d do though. Maybe just have Voyager pop out with the sphere behind it and the whole fleet just shreds it. Idk.
DS9 only did that once (to my recollection) with “Our Man Bashir” and it was fucking glorious, if only for Garak acting as an inverse wingman. And the supervillain Sisko was very memeable too.
Time travel wise, DS9 did it twice (again, to my recollection) first with the Bell Riots which was pretty decent in terms of depicting where western ‘civilization’ is heading in the 21st century, alas they were unable to really hammer home the point as to why things became like that, but the subtext is kind of obvious. The second time was the anniversary show where they crossed over with the original series which was, frankly, how you should approach that show in my opinion - with some fucking respect, unlike what trek has done to it recently. That was also a great episode.
Endings: What You Leave Behind has me in tears every time, which I honestly can’t say about many shows. The parting of ways of so many characters really hit me (I watched the show as it was airing) as these characters were a family by then. Yeah the Sisko/Dukat/Prophets/Pah-Wraiths thing was all kinds of dumb, but it was, tbh the only way I can figure to end that whole ‘thing’, I think Sisko being space jesus was sorta leading them in that direction the whole time and it was just a matter of how dumb it would be, not if it would be dumb. I honestly think they did worse by Dukat with that arc. He should’ve been tried for war crimes by the Bajorans. Harrumph
Voyager’s ending was not bad in and of itself, rather that it came out of nowhere, that episode could have been done most anywhere in the last couple seasons and it would work almost perfectly (except B’elanna being preggers I guess). There was no build up to it. With DS9 there was the ongoing war effort, with Voyager, the show was, like TNG, heavily episodic, with very little allowed to carry over from one episode to the next, so you could kinda slot any story anywhere almost. That and all the magic future tech just kinda… ruins any stories you could want to tell after that as it completely fucks with the balance of power now that the Feds have future tech.
My problem with Voyager wasn’t really that it was bad (though it had its fair share of bad episodes and mediocre ones, more than DS9 or TNG imo), but rather that it could have been so much more. Apparently the writers originally planned for the Year of Hell to be an actual year - i.e. a season-long arc with Voyager gradually being pummeled to shit over many episodes, but orders from on-high scuppered that. Berman was notoriously averse to what DS9 was doing, and it’s telling that his biggest input on that show was getting Terry Farrell to quit cause he was such a creep, and him personally putting a stop to the best gay couple in all of Trek (Bashir/Garak). Ronald D. Moore later basically did what Voyager should have been, with the BSG reboot - characters dying or suffering permanent injuries. Relationships forming and breaking, Galactica gradually taking damage that can’t just be repaired because they don’t have a dock to put into, until by the end, the ship is a floating hulk. Voyager could just magically be spacedock-fresh every episode. (and yes I know that was so they could reuse footage of the ship)
P.S. Voyager was my first experience with Trek really, other than seeing the odd bit of TNG here and there, so I have some residual fondness for it too, I’m not just bashing it out of 20 year old fan hatred