These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
The Kazon. They're so pathetic that the Borg didn't want to "infect" itself by assimilating them. From the getgo they're presented as Always Chaotic EvilToo Dumb to Live space pirates.
Is Janeway really a tyrannical, Trigger HappyOmnicidal Maniac who abuses her crew as she carves a swath of destruction and ruination through the Delta Quadrant? Or just suffering from manic-depression? According to Kate Mulgrew when asked during an autograph signing, she said her Word Of God belief was that Janeway was in fact at best Bipolar or at worst, suffered some kind of mental instability.
One episode, "Night", has the crew suffering from a severe drop in morale, thanks in large part to Janeway having locked herself in her quarters, with the lights off, for two months and refusing to communicate with anyone but Chakotay. She's the very picture of mental health!
Chakotay is revealed in "Shattered" to have a hidden supply of Cider in one of the cargo bays for the last 7 years. No wonder he comes across as being wooden, spouts nonsensical mysticism at the strangest times, has questionable command abilities, and for the life of him can't land a shuttle without crashing it into something! Its entirely plausible that he's been secretly tapping the Admiral for the entire trip.
Chakotay's not the only one who might have been intoxicated. Kes constantly sees visions that no one else can see, and speaks in an oddly calm, half-there tone of voice. Kes has a little garden where she grows exotic plants. Coincidence?
One interpretation of Harry Kim is that he's a severely repressed homosexual who deliberately seeks unattainable women in order to vastly overcompensate for his unrequited love for Tom. This would explain a lot.
Canon Sue: Janeway has received more than a few accusations of being a Mary Sue for the show's co-creator, Jeri Taylor, mostly because the episodes written by Taylor always seemed to spend their time fawning over what a wonderful and virtuous person Janeway was, even in the face of the utterly crazy decisions she often made.
Crowning Music of Awesome: Certainly had one of the best Star Trek themes, if not the best. So good, in fact, that it won an Emmy. It has been said that Voyager's opening theme is the music to what the show should have been.
Ensemble Darkhorse: The Doctor. Not only is he considered by many fans to be their favorite character, but there's an argument to be made for him being the most prominent example in franchise history, eclipsing even Spock or Data. Nearly every single episode that is generally agreed to be "good" or better features The Doctor prominently. It does help that Robert Picardo enjoyed his character and working on the show a good deal more than any of the other major cast members, and that The Doctor was easily the most consistently-written character.
Family Unfriendly Aesop: "Mortal Coil" gives us the message that there is no afterlife, you won't see your dead loved ones again and that the only way to find any meaning in all of existence is in others. The fact that the scenes used to hammer this in consist of Naomi's adorable antics make it even worse.
Given that the episode takes place during a Talaxian holiday celebrating family and kinship, the air date was probably intentional.
Fan Nickname: "Captain Hepburn" for Janeway, due to the fact that she's basically a Katharine Hepburn look-a-like. Kate Mulgrew even starred in a play about Hepburn.
"HMS Reset Button" for either the ship or the entire series. Depending on how snarky you feel.
Also "Gilligan's Starship" or "USS Minnow" for the number of times they nearly made it home...
Also 'The Bun of Steel' (Janeway's original hairdo), plus her Gooey Look and Glare of Death. Chakotay is often called 'Woodentop' (or variations thereof) due to his acting skills. Seven of Nine's nicknames tend to focus on her... attributes.
Neelix has one too. But it's not really repeatable in polite company... (HINT: It has to do with how useful his mind is, and what his head looks like...)
SF Debris prefers to call him "Hedgehog," or "S**thead."
Seven and the Captain is also vastly preferred over Seven and Chakotay. For that matter, you can probably find more fans of almost any pairing than that one, even Tuvok/Neelix.
Good Troi Episode: "Timeless", "Fair Trade". also literally, in that the episodes in which Voyager makes contact with Starfleet, Marina Sirtis reprises her role as Deanna Troi and plays a bigger, more important role than she ever did in the Next Generation series or its movies.
Holy Shit Quotient: While "Coda" had some definite problems, the scene where the Doctor euthanizes the Phage-infected Janeway is downright chilling. Also, the scene shortly thereafter where Chakotay tries and fails to bring Janeway back with CPR; this doubles as a Tear Jerker.
Internet Backdraft: If anyone asks, you like (or dislike) Kes and Seven equally. Because otherwise a horde of fans will tear you limb from limb.
Moral Event Horizon: Captain Janeway herself very nearly leaps over the Moral Event Horizon in "Equinox". The supposed bad guy, Ransom, is sympathetic by comparison. He only wanted to get his crew home.
Ransom, however, was killing self-aware beings and using their corpses as fuel. He ran over the moral event horizon long ago.
Also Tuvix, where Janeway splits the eponymous being back into Tuvok and Neelix, against his express wishes.
Nearly an unintentional one in Time and Again. Janeway knew that a civilization was less than a day away from accidentally wiping itself (and everything else on the planet) out because of an energy source it was using. She outright refused to warn them, citing the Prime Directive*
and not even correctly
. The only thing that prevented her from being partially responsible for the deaths of every living thing on the planet was some luck with a phaser.
Paranoia Fuel: The possibility that the "loved ones" you see during an NDE are actually beings who want to devour your soul. As if this weren't horrible enough, it could also mean that many religions are essentially massive farming operations, as people conditioned to unquestioningly trust certain religious figures would be likely to follow them into the light without a second thought.
Special Effects Failure: While this example by no means detracts from the beauty of it. Word Of God 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. This is the shot in question◊
Strawman Has a Point: Shortly before she defects to the Kazon in the first season, Seska delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Janeway. While the episode tries to make her out as being a raving lunatic, it's hard not to agree with some (if not all) of Seska's criticisms.
Stoic Woobie: Seven. As good as she is at keeping her emotions in check, you know when she starts getting just slightly teary-eyed or starts acting even somewhat angry, she's really feeling it.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: According to some of Voyager's production staff (including the late Michael Piller), Voyager was a victim of Executive Meddling. UPN execs wanted TNG-type ratings, and they decided the best way to achieve that was to turn Voyager into TNG-Lite. Hence little or no character conflict, no ongoing story arcs (for example, producer Brannon Braga wanted a year-long "Year of Hell" but UPN vetoed it), and various other flaws (real and imagined) the series had.
This is underlined by Ron D. Moore's stint on the series. He wrapped up Deep Space Nine and then spent about three weeks on VOY's production staff before giving up for the above reasons (and more). He then went on to create a show about another spaceship that was left to its own devices in hostile territory, trying to find a home. It's called Battlestar Galactica, it has all the things the Executive Meddlers veto'd, which was a ratings and critical hit. Coincidence?
Here's an interview with Moore trashing Voyager, it's an interesting look into the show as, according to him, it got so bad that even the people working on the show pretty much gave up on it (as he notes on one time he asked about how he should write Torres and he pretty much got the answer: We don't know, do whatever you want). Well it would explain a lot...
A good example of how Voyager is TNG-lite? The production codes for the first few series started at 801.
Kes and Neelix had a breakup during season 3 that didn't really get so much as lip service after it started in "Warlord" (3x10); it just ended somewhere between two episodes (3x17 and 3x18). Ethan Phillips (Neelix's actor) found this a frustrating point (after all, the relationship featured prominently since the first episode)—and to make matters worse, they actually filmed a scene for "Fair Trade" (3x13) that decisively gave it finality, but it got deleted from the final cut.
The production issues even showed themselves in the episodes, with Mulgrew struggling to figure out Janeway's character, Beltran's actor revolt against the role and Garrett Wang getting direction to be constantly expressing Dull Surprise, amongst other problems.
Too Cool to Live: One, from "Drone". A Borg drone comprised of technology from a few centuries in the future, and whose humanity had nurtured since his "birth". Unfortunately, that advanced technology also quickly made him a priority target for the Borg, and he allows himself to die to prevent the Borg from relentlessly pursuing Voyager just to assimilate him.
The Borg once destroyed a fleet of thirty-nine ships, but on this series, one lone starship kept escaping their grasp. While the decay arguably began with the introduction of the Borg Queen, the Collective were still an almighty force to reckon with. The decay really set in with their appearances here. Obviously, if the Collective assimilated Voyager, there wouldn't be a series. They had to keep losing, but they were also serious ratings grabbers following the strong box-office of First Contact. So they showed up a lot... and promptly lost a lot.
Species 8472. Introduced in "Scorpion," they were Scary Dogmatic Aliens from another galaxy with the technology to take on the Borg Collective and win. Turns out the Borg picked that fight, but there was serious concern that Species 8472 would take the fight to the rest of the galaxy after finishing them off. Decay came in their final appearance: "In the Flesh," where they were more humanized and appeared to make peace with humanity.
Q turned from a frivolous yet dangerous omniscient being who nevertheless delivered some important lessons to Captain Picard, to a lovesick puppy who goes to Captain Janeway for advice on parental relationships and conflict resolution in the Q Continuum. In fairness, Q's portrayal was almost always Depending on the Writer - varying from villain to jokester and anything in-between.
Then there's what happens to Harry Kim at the end of season 3. When Tuvok remarks "the life form is 5 meters away and closing" when they're exploring the Borg cube, Harry suddenly dashes forward all by himself, without looking, and blurts out "from where?" Of course, this gets him mauled by one of Species 8472, and if it weren't for Executive Meddling he'd have died.
Harry Kim's Epic Fail in "Deadlocked" when his brilliant solution to fix a hull breach with a new forcefield he designed promptly gets him sucked out into cold vacuum of space where he dies. Due to technobabble involving a phased photocopied duplicate from the second Voyager he gets better.
Unfortunate Implications: In "Shattered", it's revealed that the Native American character has been keeping a secret booze stash for seven years. Yeah...
Not sure I really get the implications of this one. If you were trapped in the Delta Quadrant, looking at about fifty or so years to get home... wouldn't you try to have a booze stash, assuming the hopelessness of the situation didn't force you to consume it all by that point?
