Few, if any, could have guessed when Star Trek: The Next Generation resurrected the franchise’s television scene in 1987 that it would spawn three successive spin-offs for a combined 18 years on the airwaves. The second of thes⛄e spin-offs, , arrived right after Next Gen concluded its run.

Star Trek: Voyager had the same bumpy start as its Berman-era brethren. Thankfully, it shared a similar sense of improvement over ꦐtime - even if it never quite found true consistency. Nevertheless, Voyager’s standout characters and commitment to action-packed adventure keeps it entertaining from start to finish, and in more recent years, some of these characters’ arcs have even continued.

7 Season Two (൩1995-1996) ꦰ

Voyager’s second season is something of a dud. As with even the worst Star Trek seasons, it still has a few gems, but they’re few and far between, and there’s a pervasive sense that the writers are somehow already scraping the bottom of the barrel with certain character arcs. Thank goodness that u🍰ltimately proved untrue, but in 1995, it was far from clear that they’d overcome these narrative hurdles.

It’s disappointing that a season which strove for a somewhat more serialized approach floundered and fumbled its goals. The villainous Kazon and the possibility of multiple defectors aboard the ship are admirable ideas, so why do the Kazo🙈n come across as trite, and the spy stuff feel so half-baked? And the less said about the rivalry over Kes’ affections between Lieutenant Tom Paris and Neelix, the better.

Episodes like the embarrassing Kes episode “Elogium” and the meme-spawningly insipid “Threshold” really hold season two even further back, but the Tuvok investigation episode “Meld”, Bജ’Elann⛄a Torres’ “Dreadnought”, and the truly strong “Deadlock” help shore things up toward the end.

There’s also “Tuvix”, which, wel🎐l… if you know, you know…

6 ♔ Season One (1995)

The first season isn’t a whole lot better than the second. Season one’s truncated 15-episode count (16 if you count the two-hour series premiere, “Caretaker”, as a pair as it became in syndication) arguably helps matters here, as the writers had fewer opportunities to bumble the sho𒈔w’s beginnings.

It’s telling that, a mere handful of hours in🌠to Star Trek: Voyager’s run, the crew is already given dangling hopes of a return home to Earth in “Eye of the Needle”. Commit to the bit, Paramount! The whole idea is that it’s a long, long, journey back to Earth! Tom Paris’ “Ex Post Facto” is a less convincing retread of a TNG Riker plot, “Heroes and Demons” ably demonstrates that the show does not yet have a firm grasp on eventual-all-star hologram, The Doctor, and “Learning Curve” concludes the season with a whimper.

On the other hand, “Caretaker” is a solid series premiere, “Parallax” is a noble attempt at Torres’ early characterization, “Phage” and “Faces” present the organ-har🐟vesting Vidiians as legitimately terrifying, and “Jetrel” m💝ay be Neelix’s finest hour in the entire run… even if that’s more of an indictment on Neelix’s writing overall than a full-blown compliment.

5 Season Six 🎐(1999-2000)

At the turn of the century, Star Trek: Voyager began 🔥to lose some steam. Two strong seasons give way to a noticeably weaker one. Season six is kind of rough. But more than that, it’s highly uꦅneven.

You’ve got “Alice”, a Paris-is-entranced nonsense piece. Yet right before it, there’s “Barge of the Dead”, B’Elanna’s which might be her best episode in the series, and “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”, which might be The✱ Doctor’s. “Fair Haven” is a bad holodeck episod😼e, but it’s surrounded by

“Pathfinder” - which movingly pushes forward our heroes’ bid to reach home, and “Blink of an Eye”, another cool sci-fi hook that delivers in spades. “Dragon’s Teeth” introduces a rad potential new villain species, and we can’t really blame the episode itself for the show failing to ever bring them▨ back.

The cracks really begin to show in the back half. Four episodes in a row are mediocre at best: “Tsunkatse” is literally an excuse to get The Rock on Star Trek: Voyager at any narrative cost; “Collective” is a dicey Borg episode; “Spirit Folk” is the quizzical decision to return to “Fair Haven” but d𒈔o an even worse job this time around; and “Ashes to Ashes” at least highlights the show’s relative ineffectiveness at retroactive continuity.

O𝓰h, and there’s that lovely little bit of character assassination for Kes in “Fury”...

Even with all these caveats, there’s enough cast chemistry at play at this point in the show’s run, enough decent-to-great episodes, and enough enjoyable moments even within the many sorrowfully-subpar one🍨s, that the overall effect is an entertaining, albeit by no means excellent, season.

4 💞 Season Three (1996-1997)

It was in Star Trek: Voyager’s third year, when it lightened up its tone to a degree and gained a firmer grasp on its characters, that the show started to come into its own. Some might argue that this didn’t happen until the fourth, but s♏uffice it to say, we disagree.

With “Basics, Part 2” wrapping up the Kazon arc for good and all, Voyager was free to try new things - and, eventually, to return to an old thing with aplomb. It is in the third season that the Borg, TNG’s nemeses, are brought into the series. First, there’s the tease in “Blood Fever” (it♑self a decent episode for unrelated reasons); next, there’s “Unity”, a Chakotay hour that reveals the Borg in full; and finally, there’s “Scorpion, Part 1”, which sets the stage in grand fashion for a potential alliance with the Borg Collective against an alleged common foe. It’s a terrific season finale.

To be sure, there are still some very rough outings. “False Profits” brings back two marooned Ferengi from The Next Generation, and while we appreciate the continuity, we don’t appreciate the episode itself. “Favorite Son” sets the lustful young Ensign Harry Kim on a planet filled with women, a✅nd it’s excruciating to behold. “Darkling” is another early Doctor stinker, and “Rise” is Exhibit A of the times when Voyager’s quest for a more action-centric approach to storytelling is a liability rather than an opportunity.

But the ratio of good episodes is on the upswing now. The “Future’s End” two-parter is hair-down-Voyager at its finest. “War🅘lord” and (especially) “Before and After” are great Kes episodes, which makes her pending departure from the series all the more unfortunate. “Macrocosm” is the reverse “Rise” - the action works in the show’s favor here by contrast. “Distant 💯Origin” is a strong sci-fi premise with an intriguing, if silly, twist.

3 Season Seven (2💟000-2001)

While it’s a full several notches beneath the remaining unranked seasons in quality, Star Trek: Voyager’s seventh and final season is an overall triumph. It comes back swinging with “event” episodes after season six’s bizarre lack thereof; the “Flesh and Blood” two-parter, originally aired on a single evening, is a fun r🍸eturn to the Hirogen, while the “Workforce” two-parter is a cool brainw▨ashed-crew romp (though we’ve got to say, Stargate SG-1 did this concept better).

“Nightingale” is a rare Harry Kim win. “Lineage” is a solid further exploration of B’Elanna’s conflicted feelings on her heritage, and a decent Tom Paris episode as well, by proxy. Befor🐭e the couple can consider conceiving a child in that episode, however, there’s “Drive”, which ties the knot for them in splendor. “Shattered” is eleventh-hour proof that it’s possible to have a four-star Chakotay episode, “The Void” is a highly-regarded trip through (literal) darkness, and “Author, Author” is another winner for The Doctor.

Sure, there are losers here as well. “Unimatrix, Part 2” picks up from season six’s messy finale with an equally messy premiere. “Natural Law” kickstarts the terrible idea of a last-minute romance between Seven of Nine and Chakotay, a decision so terrible that the obvious off-screen break-up is never addressed when Seven returns to Trek in Star Trek꧑: Picard.

And “Endgame”, the series finale, is at turns brilliant and disappointing - brilliant in its action-packed heights and what-if explorations of the crew’s potential futures, and disappointing in how jaw-droppingly abruptly the show fades to black without any subsequent exploration of our crew’s actual futures. At least the current crop of shows have been picking up where “Endgame” left oﷺff for several characters.

Setting that aside, season seven remains riveting, and it’s an example of Voyager not quite firing all photons, but🐲 hardly treading space at one-quarte🎉r impulse, either.

2 Season Fi🙈ve (1998-1999) 💛

In its fifth season, Star Trek: Voyager continues the string of h𒁃eights begun with its fourth. It misses a step here and there, but it’s pretty close to tying season four for supremacy.

“Night” and “Drone” open the season strongly with an intentionally somber premiere and a disquieting follow-up for Seven of Nine. “Timeless”, the sho🦋w’s landmark 100th episode, doesn’t waste the opportunity to soar. “Infinite Regress” showcases Jeri Ryan’s incredible acting talents with yet another winner for Seven. “Nothing Human” is a good🐟 B’Elanna piece; “Counterpoint” is perhaps Captain Katherine Janeway’s zenith episode - it’s weird how we’ve yet to mention Kate Mulgrew’s outstanding main character by name, right? - “Bride of Chaotica!” is hilarious holodeck fun.

“Dark Frontier” is a gripping💧 two-hour event for the Borg plot. Sure, it’s sort of “adrenaline for adrenaline’s sake”, but we don’t mind. “Someone to Watch Over Me” is this writer’s single favourite episode of S🌱tar Trek: Voyager. “Relativity” is one of this writer’s favourite time travel Star Trek episodes. Nice stuff, both!

Yes, “The Fight” is essentially 45 minutes of “Chakotay must box!”, and it’ll probably put you to sleep before it’s fini💮shed. And uh, yes, “Extreme Risk” has a mystifyingly negative message at the end of the episode. (“Just get over it” shouldn’t work this well psychologically, but somehow, Chakotay’s advice is treated in the positive sense?) But it’s Star Trek. What’s more, it’s Star Trek: Voyager. They can’t all be top-shelf fare.

1 ♏ Season Four (1997-1998)

Between Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s incredible sixth season and Star Trek: Voyager’s spellbinding fourth, the 1997-1998 television season was one for the ages. In this timeframe, Voyager goes from a recommendation with scattered asterisks to a full-steam-ahead spectacular show. Even if such profound overall quali🐠ty wasn’t destined to last, season four is immensely rewatchable stuff.

“Scorpion, Part 2” wraps up season three’s incredible finale while introducing Seven of Nine, a former Borg drone destined to become a fast fandom favourite whose return in Star Trek: Picard was met with widespread🌌 praise.

“The Gift” has the misfortune of needing to write poor Kes out of the series, but it’s a graceful enough effort. “The Raven” quickly asserts Seven’s potential, “Scientific Method” is effectively creepy, the “Year of Hell” two-parter might be Voyager’s best big event, “Random Thoughts” is chilling, “Concerning Flight” is good Janeway content, and… have we mentioned these episodes all come back-to😼-back? “Hunters”, “Prey”, and “The Killing Game” are only separated by only one unrelated episode in an otherwise-full-fledged introduction and confrontation with the Hirogen.

Heck, “Living Witness” is another contender for best Doctor episode, and we’ve even got some folks pondering whether the character’s anticipated role in the upcoming Star Trek: Academy is actually about this alternative version of The Doctor, rather than the🔥 “real” one. We kind of hope it isn’t, but at least it’d be a follow-up to a masterpiece.

There’s just so much to love about Star Trek: Voyager season four, and so very little to disparage, that we could (clearly) gush for da✨ys. You get the picture. In our view, this is peak Star Trek.