Star Trek: Voyager Reviews KK

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.

I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

There are several episodes in VOY that involve the question of whether or not holograms are alive, and/or feature conflict between holograms and organic beings. I’m going to ignore that part of VOY, it’s a bit too philosophical, and comparing the maltreatment of holograms to the maltreatment of, for example, Black people, seems stupid. Although I kind of make an exception for The Doctor (it’s impossible to be a fan of ST and not do that) I lean towards saying that holograms are not life forms, but I don’t feel like going into it.

“Friendship One” See this for a plot summary.

I’m having some trouble deciding what the political aspect of this episode is. It could be about using certain energy sources without the right controls, or using them at all (in this episode it involves anti-matter, but you could interpret this episode as being anti-nuclear power). I don’t know anything about matter and anti-matter, but it seems like in the ST universe it’s a safe enough source of energy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the problem was that the knowledge they recieved from the probe was radically ahead of where they were technologically and they skipped a few steps- steps which might have resulted in them avoiding the accident.

I give it three stars out of five.

“Natural Law” See this for a plot summary.

This episode has a lot to say about technologically advanced societies not treating indigenous people (at least those who live in a traditional way) with respect for their culture. It also illustrates how many from the advanced society will think that invading an indigenous society and radically changing it is good for the indigenous people.

For some reason I’m having trouble describing this episode better than I have, so I’ll just leave it at that. I give it three stars out of five.

“Homestead” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Renaissance Man” See this for a plot summary.

A non-politiccal episode. I give it three stars out of five.

“Endgame” parts 1 and 2. See this and this for a plot summary.

A non-political two-parter, but one that deserves some comment since it’s the series finale. Looking at the series finales for each of the 1990s series, I think this one is the best of the three.

I give it five stars out of five.