Star Trek Voyager – The Complete Third Season

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1. Michael D. Goolsby

   November 4, 2010 at 12:16 pm

   Review by Michael D. Goolsby for Star Trek Voyager – The Complete Third Season
   Rating:
   Here we are now at season 3. We start out this season with Janeway and crew in the worst possible circumstances–stranded on a planet with only the clothes on their back and no way to send out for help. A few more recurring characters get killed off and even this sets up some future plot lines that will reveal themselves in the next few seasons.This season also gives us another glimpse of the Q Continuum–this time it is viewed as a US Civil War Battlefield. So many variations that they could have done with this. We also get glimpses of what comes next for this wayward crew–the Year Of Hell first appears here as Kes’ nightmares. Then there is the first encounters with the Borg–sooner or later, they were going to appear in the story. I liked how they outlined Voyager’s first contact with them–on a planet where the inhabitants went underground to escape attacks from above and in the final scene, Chakotay tells Janeway they found out who attacked these people when the find a dead Borg body in one of the mineshaft entrances. One question I have always had, though was whether or not the Dominion had problems with the Borg as well–never did see any assimilated Jem’hadr or Vorta in the Collective.Eventually, Janeway and crew encounter living Borg, the first ones from a ship that suffered a mishap and the survivors having to cope with life after assimilation fighting each other. Then comes “Scorpion”, where Voyager encounters the Collective for the first time and witnesses its next conquest with the Borg going after Species 8472 and that things were not going so well for the Collective. Once again, Janeway tries to strike up another alliance with one of the Delta Quadrant baddies (first time with the Traib in Season 2) and tries to align herself with the Borg–bad mistake.On the lighter side, there is the episode commemorating the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek, when Tuvok has his flashbacks of his first Starfleet assignment on board the USS Excelsior, commanded by Hikaru Sulu and their activities surrounding the first Kittimer Conference. One other thing to note about this episode is that they also bring back Commander Kang as one of Sulu’s favorite nemeses. After that, he only shows up in DS9 as an old man.

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2. Anonymous

   November 4, 2010 at 11:17 am

   Review by for Star Trek Voyager – The Complete Third Season
   Rating:
   The first two seasons of Voyager had some great episodes but the show didn’t seem to be going anywhere and once season three began, the show started to become old and worn out like the 1960’s Enterprise. After the Kazon left the show Voyager started to get better I believe. The series started going on weekly adventures and it was fun. Some of my favorite episodes came out of season three like “Flashback”, “Q and the Grey”, and “Unity.” My most favorites have to be “Blood Fever” where things heat up between Paris and Torres and we learn more about the Vulcan’s, also a great Borg episode called “Scorpion, part I” which is considered one of Voyager’s greatest episodes. There isn’t really any awful episodes in season three but there is a share of weak and very forgettable episodes like “False Profits”, “Rise” and a few others. Other then just a few weak episodes, this season was a great season which was the start of a long streak of great Trek seasons. If you like good Sci-Fi get these DVD’s!!!

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3. George

   November 4, 2010 at 11:04 am

   Review by George for Star Trek Voyager – The Complete Third Season
   Rating:
   For my money, season three is one of the very best of Voyager. It’s clearly a transitional year, from what I feel was a very weak season two to a more action-oriented, meaty, and fun season four.

   The most superb episode of the season, and one of the best of Trek, is Scorpion Part 1, which introduces Species 8472. I remember watching this when it was originally broadcast. Back then the idea of a species “more powerful than the Borg” was almost unimaginable. The introduction of this alien race really injected some life into Voyager villainy, which had been mired for two seasons in the tired and rehashed Kazon story arc. Just look at the foreheads of those guys and tell me that they’re not just a cross between Cardassians and Klingons. And we never met a Kazon female!

   The other standouts in the third year of Voyager are Future’s End, though the first installment is much more interesting and tightly scripted than the second; the engaging Distant Origin, which very cleverly presented its first couple of acts from the perspective of the dinosaur aliens; and Before and After. Not many praise that episode, but it does showcase some of Jennifer Lien’s best acting, especially when she’s a very confused 9-yr.-old at the episode’s beginning. The backwards plot movement makes us wonder what happens next–meaning what happened before–along with Kes. We get at least a glimpse of what Kes might have developed into over the seven-year run of the show, are introduced to the Krenem, and the episode moves along the Torres-Paris romance subplot. We even get a passing reference to Kes’ one lung (she donated the other to Neelix in season one). What’s not to like?

   Solid episodes in season three are many: There’s the strong Basics Part 2, which nicely wraps up the Kazon, Seska, and Suder story lines, and The Swarm, where we finally get to meet, sort of, the Doctor’s creator. There’s False Profits, which finds a clever way to bring the Ferengi into the Delta Quadrant, simply by pointing out that two have been there already for a few years. I like very much both Remember and Sacred Ground, though by the end of the season Janeway seems to forget the lesson in spirituality she learned in the latter episode. When in Scorpion Leonardo suggests that she pray, Janeway rejects the suggestion pretty much immediately. Also solid are The Q and the Grey, though this gets derailed by the end, and Macrocosm, with its famous, or infamous, scenes of Kate Mulgrew looking fantastic in her tank top. I also like Blood Fever very much, as well as Unity, Displaced, Worst Case Scenario, and Real Life. This last I long thought poorly of because the Klingon friends of the Doctor’s holographic son struck me as a negative racial stereotype. But perhaps I was being oversensitive.

   Weaker, but still good, episodes include Flashback, which could have been great, The Chute, Alter Ego, Coda, and Warlord, which could have been really silly if not for Lien’s intense performance. I know a lot of people hate Favorite Son and Harry Kim episodes generally, but this episode does have that sense of campiness that made the original series so much fun. Demon women pounding big wooden sticks on the floor just really appeals to me, I guess.

   Two episodes I would rate the season’s worst. First, Rise, which tries to be pulse-pounding but ends up being just dumb, and second, Darkling, which even that superb thespian Robert Picardo can’t save. I was also annoyed that this episode assumes that the romance of Neelix and Kes has already ended. The problem is that the “break up” between the two in Warlord occurs when Kes is being possessed by an alien. So did they ever really break up? Did they ever talk about it ro resolve the relationship? We’re just left hanging on this score. The relationship between these two characters always felt weird, though, so it’s good that it ended somehow, I suppose.

   After basically suffering through rewatchings of many season two episodes, the season three DVD set provided a pretty exhilarating experience. The extra stuff is generally good, though the “Braving the Unknown” segment seems much shorter than for seasons 1 and 2, and the “Easter Egg” ostensible surprises are pretty lame. Three-fourths of most of them consist of clips from episodes that you could just watch yourself, interspersed with a few comments by one actor or another. Certainly these extras are better than nothing, but it would be great to see more interviews with well-known guest actors.

   In sum: every Voyager fan must own this, and Star Trek and sci fi fans more generally should give it a try, starting perhaps with the last two discs.

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4. R. McAdams

   November 4, 2010 at 11:03 am

   Review by R. McAdams for Star Trek Voyager – The Complete Third Season
   Rating:
   Wake up Paramount! Take a cue from your sales on the STTNG sets. Now that you have finally come to your senses and dropped the prices on the sets to where they should have been in the FIRST PLACE, I would imagine that all of the hold-outs (like me) are now buying them.

   See, it works like this, 30 minute shows on DVD, for a season, have earned a market fair price of $25-35. So, since Star Trek episodes are an hour long, that means a fair doubling of the price puts it into the $50-70 range. So, $60 is your sweet spot.

   You will be able to take in the obsessive fans with your initial insane pricing points, but everyone else looks at your current price tags, especially with the shoddy packaging that you are still foisting on us, and just laughs and waits for the inevitable price drop. So, do us all a favor and fire your marketing and sales people, drop the price to where it is supposed to be, and earn your sales. Nobody sane is going to pay more than $60 for a season of an hour long/episode TV show on DVD, period.

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