Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
The biggest issue with Star Trek: Voyager is the fact that it squandered what was arguably the best premise of any Star Trek TV series; a Federation starship flung to the other side of the galaxy and forced to work together with Maquis terrorists to make the long journey home. Instead, the show did the opposite of so many things it should have done. It put the Maquis in Starfleet uniforms and had them largely integrated by the second episode into the crew. Rather than using the journey home to explore new worlds and civilisation each week, it spent two seasons stuck in the space of the bland, haughty Kazon. Worse of all, it found a way to hit the damn reset button every time.
That’s not to say there weren’t moments of brilliance. The Phage-ridden Vidians of the first two seasons were a much more threatening presence, the introduction of Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine as Voyager became caught in the conflict between the Borg and Species 8472 in ‘Scorpion’ made for a thrilling season three cliffhanger and rejuvenated the series, plus ‘Year of Hell’ remains one of the most brutal Star Trek two-parters ever, even though the ramifications are washed aside with that reset button again.
The trouble with Voyager is that it didn’t do anything interesting with its (often bland) characters outside of Captain Janeway, Seven of Nine and the Doctor. And it managed to range from being a weaker copy of The Next Generation to a ridiculously over the top ‘I can take on five Borg cubes no problem’ show week after week. It’s a shame, as the series could have gone in a far more interesting direction.
Deep Space 9 is absolutely the best series in Star Trek, it’s cast are brilliant, their stories creative, and the Dominion War is still the best thing that Star Trek has ever done. I’d also put forward that ‘The Battle of AR-558’ is possibly their best episode.