History YMMV / StartrekVoyager

* CommonKnowledge: We're told that along with the Millennium Gate, the Great Wall of China was one of the only man made objects visible from Earth's orbit by the naked eye before the 22nd century, which is certainly not the case; to name a few, the Great Pyramids of Giza, collections of cities, man-made geographical features (like Lake Mead in Nevada, Kennecott Copper Mine (an open pit mine) in Utah, and Flevoland in the Netherlands), and wakes of large ships at sea are all visible from space. What's more, the Great Wall is only visible from the lower part of low Earth orbit, and only under very favorable conditions

** Remember "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E15Threshold Threshold]]", the episode where Tom Paris made it to Warp 10? The fans decided not to. In fact, [[CanonDiscontinuity even the series itself]] struck it off.[[note]]Was it? Does anyone have actual proof that it was officially disregarded? None has been provided so far[[/note]] However, ''Lower Decks'' not only treats it as canon, but says the events are now public knowledge!

** Ah, Neelix. Incompetent goon or a broken man putting on a smile and surrounding himself with kids to keep from falling into the abyss? His backstory includes running away from military service, watching his homeworld be wiped out, and tooling around space on his own as a junk trader. His cheerful attitude and positive outlook may fray Tuvok's nerves, but ''Voyager'' is the only thing resembling a family he had. Conversely, Neelix often claims to be an expert at things he obviously lacks any competence in, and even gets his crewmembers killed on Away Missions, leading his haters to theorize that he's a charlatan.

--> "...if there was a TNG episode in which Riker, Ro, La Forge, Crusher, and Ogawa were all killed, it might, y’know, get mentioned once or twice... Yet the equivalent characters on Voyager are all killed, and by the second hour nobody seems to give a shit."

** While their exact ages are never made explicit (Kes was canonically two years old when she first met Neelix but appears far older due to the Ocampa's life span being 10 years), a relationship with the age gap such as the one that exists between Kes and Neelix would not be tolerated today with increased awareness of how older partners can exploit the naivete and inexperience of those far younger than them into entering relationships and situations they are simply not old enough to fully understand. This is not made better by Neelix displaying highly possessive behavior over Kes and hostility towards those he perceives as threats to their relationship such as Tom Paris.

* 25 years after the episode "Phage" aired, Earth, in real life, would face COVID-19, not unlike the titular plague of the episode. Not only have people scrambled to keep up with the mutations of the virus, but it has put an immense stress and desperation on the world population.

* FanonDiscontinuity: There are a number of very silly {{Idiot Plot}}s, in the first two to three seasons in particular, that are written out of fan consciousness for the sake of mercy.

* GottaShipEmAll

* EthnicScrappy: Chakotay is sometimes seen like this. Despite being in a role of authority and a chief officer of ''Voyager'', he's seen as a mishmash of all the worst traits of white people writing about Native Americans, including his [[MagicalNativeAmerican mystical insight powers]] and tracking and survival mastery. Not helping the character is the background materials. All of Chakotay's backstory was BasedOnAGreatBigLie provided to the ''Voyager'' writers by a self-proclaimed Native American "expert" going by the name "Jamake Highwater", who later was revealed to be a fraud and had absolutely ''no'' Native American heritage whatsoever, and whose only knowledge of Native Americans came from Hollywood. The absolute worst part of this is that Robert Beltran, who is second-generation Mexican-American with a lot of Native American roots, ended up utterly ''furious'' at the portrayal he was being asked to perform, and has gone on to openly denounce his role in the show and break with a lot of the former crew (though he has a bit more sympathy for his castmates). Taken UpToEleven in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E9Tattoo Tattoo]]", an episode where Chakotay finds out that his ancestors were half-animal savages before magic space white men taught them how to be human. Although, according to said space men "half-animal savages" still made them the most advanced culture on the planet at the time.

** At least until the release of Star Trek Discovery, Star Trek Voyager was the series many fans preferred to ignore, with Enterprise in a close second place.

* RelationshipWritingFumble:
** The writers seemed to forget that Kes dumping Neelix in "Warlord" wasn't real, since she was being possessed. Afterwards they're presented as broken up for real, with no further explanation. A scene was filmed for the episode "Fair Trade" to give some closure to the relationship, but it was cut due to time constraints.
** "Resolutions" was meant to [[MeaningfulName resolve]] the whole J/C issue. But as their ShipTease continued throughout the series, the audience could have been forgiven for expecting they'd eventually hook up.

** While this example by no means detracts from the beauty of it, WordOfGod states that in the last shot of the opening sequence (done in CGI), the three (incredibly tiny, almost window-like) grey patches on the bottom of the Voyager's nose before it jumps into warp were actually missing texture spaces. [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Amblin_model_with_missing_textures.jpg This is the shot in question]]

** Q Junior’s friendship with Icheb in "[=Q2=]" becomes this when one remembers [[spoiler:[[SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome what happens to the latter]] in ''Series/StarTrekPicard'']].

** Chakotay is often called Chak/Chuck, Commander Tat-face, and maybe Commander Studmuffin.

* ContestedSequel: Just scan this page. ''TOS'', ''TNG'' and ''[=DS9=]'' never took anywhere near as much flak, outside of the first year or so after they were transmitted. Opinions on this series finally seem to be settling down a little after the the launch of the even more divisive ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', though there's still some debate over whether this was an under-appreciated series that can now be considered VindicatedByHistory, or a largely SoOkayItsAverage show that was usually watchable, but ultimately hurt by the producers and network not being willing to take any real risks.

** Whilst there are few who would say that Ransom in the episode ''Equinox'' was right to murder innocent creatures to get home, the controversy comes more from Janeway's uncompromising Captain Ahab level reaction that puts her own ship and crew at risk and nearly ends with her murdering an ''Equinox'' crew member in cold blood, and by all signs would have done if Chakotay hadn't stopped her. Was what he did so bad that she had to go all-out to stop him, should she have tried to be more diplomatic with him, or should she have backed off and let Starfleet put him on trial when he reached Earth? Muddying the waters substantially is the fact that the ''Equinox'' was stated to be an inferior ship to ''Voyager'' to the point that she lost half her crew within weeks of arriving in the Delta Quadrant and the rest were left starving and desperate on a broken ship that could not possibly have made it back home, meaning that this had suddenly become a ''kill or be killed'' type of situation which Janeway completely dismisses as she sits in complete comfort with hot coffee on tap.

** The "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E19ThinkTank Think Tank]]" have their defenders. Whilst they are certainly doing it for their own benefit and thus have to be thought of in that light, the fact is that they have saved millions of lives through their actions. Curing the Phage for example not only helps the Viidians but has stopped everyone in that region of space from being murdered for their organs. It does depend on where you sit on the Needs of the Many argument.

* ExpectationLowerer: Ensign Harry Kim. Easily the least useful person aboard the ship. Even Neelix can lay claim to motivating the crew to do their best, or wheezing out a campfire song from time to time. Harry can't even get laid on the ''holodeck'' -- that's how socially repressed he is. One tryst with a TOS-style space babe left him with a venereal disease... and Janeway wouldn't let him hear the end of it (''"I wanted to leave a '''lasting''' impression"''). Oddly, considering his manic desperation to get back to Earth, it is Harry who is [[YouGetMeCoffee assigned to the ship]] in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E8FuturesEnd Future's End]]" whilst the others get to romp around in L.A. (And Harry Kim in command of ''Voyager'' is every bit as thrilling as you imagine.) He never wins one single ''Kal-toh'' game against Tuvok in their seven-year voyage, and Icheb only wins by disregarded Harry's seasoned 'advice'. After a while you begin to wonder if the show runners have it out for Garrett Wang.

** Even the show's notorious reliance StatusQuoIsGod is looked on more favorably in hindsight by some fans who feel that the intensely story arc-based shows that became popular after ''Voyager'' went off the air invariably descend into ContinuityLockout, TheChrisCarterEffect, DarknessInducedAudienceApathy, or all three at once. That being said, the fans who do appreciate the more episodic nature of the show usually will admit that it got a bit silly on the occasions when the titular ship got thoroughly trashed one week, and was completely fine the following week.

** Chakotay has this among American Indian Trekkies (as well as the actor himself!) for EthnicScrappy [[MagicalNativeAmerican reasons]].

** The preposterous idea that the Voth from ''Distant Origin'' could have achieved space travel without leaving a single piece of archeological evidence either on Earth or the surrounding planets, or would have been restricted to just one small part of the world as the episode suggests despite the fact that anyone capable of interstellar space travel should also know the secrets of the boat, suggests that their ancestors were abducted from Earth and left to evolve in the Delta Quadrant as opposed to leaving it of their own free will.

** Thanks to a throwaway line in "The 37's" (which was turned into a RunningGag by Website/SFDebris), B'Elanna Torres gained the reputation as a Chief Engineer who can't identify anything, even with a tricorder. Even though the idea behind the line was that the Federation had moved well past the need to use animal excrement to fertilize their crops, and it was ''far'' from the first time that a character from the franchise's present day had been befuddled by something from the 20th century.[[note]](Admittedly, the line would probably have made a lot more sense had it been given to someone who was alien and/or had a sheltered upbringing -- such as Kes or Harry -- as Torres was part of the Maquis, where it's far easier to imagine their more isolated existence might force them to resort to using animal products to grow crops)[[/note]]

** Thanks to a throwaway line in "The 37's," B'Elanna Torres gained the reputation as a Chief Engineer who can't identify anything, even with a tricorder.

* BreakoutCharacter: Creator/JeriRyan (Seven of Nine) and Creator/RobertPicardo (The Doctor) are so multi-talented that they can carry the entire show by themselves, as they have shown on repeated occasions. Picardo has the Midas touch: The Doctor is simply the best thing about ''Voyager'' (beyond some sterling moments with the female cast), and one only has to take Picardo and inject him into a sister show ([[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]]) or movie (''[[Film/StarTrekFirstContact First Contact]]'') for brilliance to be assured!

** The Doctor, he of endless {{Deadpan Snark|er}} and CharacterDevelopment, was so much this, that he crossed the line into BreakoutCharacter, as listed above.

* RonTheDeathEater: Some viewers like to see Janeway as the villain of the show.

* ValuesDissonance: While their exact ages are never made explicit (Kes was canonically two years old when she first met Neelix but appears far older due to the Ocampa's life span being 10 years), a relationship with the age gap such as the one that exists between Kes and Neelix would not be tolerated today with increased awareness of how older partners can exploit the naivete and inexperience of those far younger than them into entering relationships and situations they are simply not old enough to fully understand. This is not made better by Neelix displaying highly possessive behavior over Kes and hostility towards those he perceives as threats to their relationship such as Tom Paris.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The title sequence.