Saturday, July 2, 2011
Season Seven Evaluation
Without reservation, I endorse season seven as the best season of Voyager. Even the weaker episodes tend to have more substance and subtlety than those in other seasons. As I remarked in a number of the reviews, I was taken by surprise by the turns the stories would take; season seven was one of constantly subverted expectations. I have some thoughts on why this might be the case, but as it pertains to the series as a whole I think I'll save them for my series wrap-up.
Many of the episodes this season were not only better researched, but were also generally thoughful rather than preachy. I offer, for your consideration, the two death penalty episodes of Voyager: Meld and Repentance. Meld's a season two episode, and it feels like a season 2 episode - one of the better ones, to be sure, but it is completely unsubtle. It blares its message of "capital punishment is bad" so loudly that, even though I agree with it, I was still annoyed to hear it. Repentance, on the other hand, is something I consider to be a quintessentially seventh season episode. It brings up important points in a heated issue, while giving both sides a chance to present reasonable arguments... arguments which are illustrated with the story.
Even an episode like Critical Care, which deals with a real life topic and is one-sided, went to the effort of finding a more obscure topic, and layered its dilemmas effectively. Even if half of it was unsubtle, it did manage to blur the lines somewhat with the Doctor's questionable activities.
Though Seven and the Doctor continued to dominate the stories this season, the writers did a better job of at least throwing bones to other characters. Even Chakotay got a couple episodes, and they also weren't awful. Torres and Neelix got to do some heavy lifting, and minor characters like Icheb had some some excellent stories too.
While Endgame may have been lackluster as a series finale, there were at least some good efforts at late-series wrap-up episodes, most notably Shattered and Homestead. Both stories embraced the episodic nature of Voyager while still providing some continuity to reward long-time viewers.
Watchability: 5/5
Bottom Line: Okay, 5/5 is maybe a bit over the top - there are plenty of episodes I'd be happy to have only watched once. But there were only two that I wished I'd never seen for the first time, and this season had the highest concentration of episodes that I'd show someone who doesn't believe Voyager was capable of producing anything of value - like me, seven months ago.
Character Status:
9. Harry Kim: Kim has been absolutely insufferable this season - and has made no progress throughout the series. Seven years later, we're still getting plots about how inexperienced he is, the only difference is that he's really bitter by now. I mean, I guess I can't blame him, what with the lack of promotion and all, but I just don't understand why the writers kept choosing to bring up the lack of promotion without doing anything about it. Screw getting home, I'd have been happier if the last scene of the series were Kim's promotion to lieutenant.
8. Chakotay: Well, he got more screen time in this season than in the last, but the only new thing in his character has been his adoption as Seven's model of humanity. Maybe if he'd been her "mentor" all this time instead of Janeway I could buy it, but I don't really. However, I do have a new link for you to some of Beltran's (in)famous gripes: here you go.
7. Kathryn Janeway: Janeway was a lot mellower this season, and the condescension is all but gone. She's been more introspective, while still maintaining her authority for command decisions. This is a great start. Too bad it's the last season, but at least she broke out of the bottom two for one of the seven seasons.
6. Tuvok: Again, very little screen time for Tuvok this season - and Repentance should've been a shoe-in for him given his role as a law enforcement guy. He's still a good character, but they just haven't gone anywhere with him.
5. Tom Paris: I'll admit, this high position on the list is largely due to his (relatively minor but good) part in Endgame, but impending fatherhood is a decent niche for this character. It's a shame that they always looked more specifically at Torres' hopes and fears for their child - well, not really a shame, because Torres benefited greatly from it - but given Tom's poor relationship with his own father the writers had plenty of material that they let slip through their fingers. Well, that and given all the times Admiral Paris speaks to the crew, he never exchanges any words with Tom.
4. B'Elanna Torres: When you think of characters that dominated Voyager, the Doctor and Seven are the first that come to mind, but the writers have done reasonably well by Torres throughout, and this season is no exception. The biggest jump in this list is between numbers four and five; starting with Torres, each of these characters have been more than pulling their weight.
3. The Doctor: Okay, now I've got some Doctor fatigue. I mean, Picardo is still great, but his character got pretty grating this season - basically, he found Janeway's discarded condescension and decided to try it on. Given that he's started to call his fellow crew mates "organics," I imagine that more seasons would've seen his character become less and less likeable. It would be one thing if the crew actually did treat him differently for being a hologram, but they don't.
2. Seven of Nine: She's basically the title character of the show by now, even eclipsing Janeway, so I suppose it is a good thing that she's interesting. She got several interesting stories, and the writers also thankfully backed off on her "superpowers" - making her a better rounded character.
So, let's see. Who's left?
Oh, really, interesting.
I guess that means:
1. Neelix: I completely forgive the writers for making Neelix so unbearable for three seasons, since it made his redemption that much sweeter. He's the only character that got a good closure episode, but he's the one who deserved it the most. Congratulations Neelix, you've made it.
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