The third season of Voyager coincided with the thirtieth anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. To be fair, this is not the worst criticism that could be made of any Star Trek show.
The third season of Voyager marks the point at which the series becomes content to be generic Star Trek. The third season of Voyager marks the point at which a troubled series adopts the path of least resistance, content to stop pushing itself in any direction and let itself be pulled by the gravity of the franchise around it. Jeri Taylor’s direction for Voyager set the series on a course back to familiar territory. Voyager did not come into its own during this third season. Even Star Trek: Enterprise came into its own in its third season, telling its own stories. Ira Steven Behr solidified the direction of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine during its third season, outlining many of the concepts and ideas that would play in the stronger fourth and fifth seasons. Michael Piller took charge of Star Trek: The Next Generation during its third season and established the template for the franchise heading into the nineties. The third season has traditionally been a formative year for the Star Trek spin-offs. Three years into the run, how did Voyager define itself? Jeri Taylor stepped up into the role of showrunner, trying to steady a ship that was very clearly on troubled water. Piller bid farewell to the show with Basics, Part I and Basics, Part II, effectively allowing the staff a clean slate coming into the third series of the show. Piller stepped aside at the end of the year, forced by the threat of mass resignations. The Voyager writing staff were apparently traumatised by their experiences on that second season. This arc failed spectacularly for a variety of reasons, with episodes like Alliances and Investigations ranking among the worst in the series’ run. So he attempted to introduce long-form storytelling on the series, with an arc building the Kazon as a credible threat to ship and crew. Michael Piller returned from his work on Legend convinced that the franchise needed a dramatic shake-up and reinvention. In many ways, the first season of the show felt like a cheaper eighth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.ĭuring the second season, the production team did attempt something a little bolder. Caretaker was a bold piece of science-fiction that promised a host of interesting ideas for the new Star Trek show, but all of those fascinating conflicts were quickly brushed aside by episodes like Parallax and Time and Again, which insisted on formulaic plotting and familiar storytelling. To be fair, it is not as though the opening two seasons of the show were marked by a surplus of ambition. The third season of Star Trek: Voyager marks the point at which the show stops trying.