Star Trek: Voyager - Season 7  (2000)

Rating: NR

Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment

Release Date: December 21, 2004
Review posted: January 18, 2005

Reviewed by Dennis Landmann

SYNOPSIS

While in pursuit of a Maquis ship in the Badlands, Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager are pulled into the Delta Quadrant. After making a decision that saves an entire species from being destroyed, but leaves both crews stranded, they must join forces to begin a 75-year journey across 70,000 light years of space to return to the Alpha Quadrant, the Federation and home.

CRITIQUE

The final season of Star Trek: Voyager is pretty decent overall but it doesn't close out the characters and final story as nicely as I thought it would. When the show started it set up the premise of the Voyager crew making their way home on what would be a 75-year long journey, but with the knowledge that The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine ran for seven seasons it was rather simple to predict the journey would take the ship only about seven years (given that each season equals one year for the characters, which it is). Each year Voyager came closer to home, but still had many light years to pass.

The series finale Endgame has very high production values and tells a story that's fairly large in scope, but after it was over I felt the finale was scripted too hastily and without consideration for wrapping up some of the character subplots, not to mention telling a story that circumvents logic, this in terms of the show's time travel storyline. I hate to give away the plot, but it involves a crew member from the future traveling back to the past to help Voyager take advantage of an opportunity that would transport it home within a matter of minutes instead of traveling another seventeen years. While this may sound exciting, and the episode is often that, the ending is a letdown and certain plot elements that occur are contradicting. The main problem is the producers and writers didn't even know how to end the series when they started, as admitted in one of the featurettes on this DVD, specifically Rick Berman mentions one idea that didn't show Voyager making it home at the end.

As for the other episodes this season there are several highlights as well as some weak ones. The sixth season finale ended with Janeway, Tuvok and B'Elanna as part of the Borg collective, setting up a good cliffhanger. Unimatrix Zero Part 2 concludes the story nicely and entertains quite well. As far as some character developments go, Tom and B'Elanna get married at the end of Drive, Seven neglects her duties in order to improve her social skills in Human Error, and Neelix warms up to a Talaxian colony in Homestead.

Highlights include the two-part Flesh and Blood, Voyager and the Hirogen pursue a ship of renegade holograms after they escape a ruthless Hirogen training facility, Shattered, Chakotay travels between different time zones on Voyager after he becomes trapped in a state of temporal flux, and the two-part Workforce, nearly all of Voyager's crew members perform labor on an alien planet without any memories of their past lives after being abducted from the ship and it's up to the Doctor, Kim, and Chakotay to get them back. There are some other good episodes apart from these, but not worth mentioning as much.

The bad episodes include Lineage, B'Elanna exhibits flashbacks from her childhood after she learns her child will have dominant Klingon traits, and Prophecy, a group of Klingons believe B'Elanna and her child will fulfill one of their sacred prophecies. Body and Soul is not terribly bad, but the story about Tuvok experiencing Pon Parr on Voyager is boring. Q2 is also a bit boring even though it features the return of Q, this time he brings along his teenage son and asks Janeway to look after him for a week.

THE VIDEO

Paramount presents Voyager in the original 1.33:1 fullscreen format. Colors are generally natural-looking and well-saturated. Detail is quite good and sharpness mostly well-defined. Black levels and dark tones are not necessarily deep, but look just fine. Scenes shot in low light appear less detailed and grainy, but the majority of scenes look bright and detailed. Compression artifacts do not cause any problems, but grain appears in a number of scenes in almost every episode. The print image is free of scratches and looks pretty nice. This presentation is not perfect, but overall pretty good.

THE AUDIO

Paramount presents Voyager in English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound. Dialogue is clear and easy to understand. The front speakers emit most of the audio, but channel separation is pretty good. Rear speakers do a good job channeling the sound effects and the music score. Surround usage is somewhat limited in the audio-driven scenes, yet there are moments when the audio penetrates the soundfield. Overall, this is a pretty good audio transfer for a TV show. Also available is an English Stereo Surround track plus closed captions. You can select to view the episodes with optional English subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

All special features are located on disc 7. Featured are six new behind-the-scenes featurettes with English subtitles. Interviews are presented in widescreen.

Braving the Unknown: Season Seven (18:00) features interviews with cast members and some creative talent. Some specific episodes are discussed, including Flesh and Blood and Workforce. While this isn't the best of the "Braving" series, it's still an enjoyable watch.

Voyager Time Capsule: The Doctor (15:00) looks at the character in some notable episodes from the show, and in a new interview Robert Picardo shares his thoughts on the Doctor, his current activities, and other things. This is perhaps one of the best, or the best, of the "Time Capsule" series as Picardo engages in interesting discussions.

Coming Home: The Final Episode (12:00) offers interviews with various cast members about the series finale. Nearly all the interviews date back to the day of production and so enthusiasm is is high. The behind-the-scenes footage is fun to see, specifically the filming on the bridge. There's a bit of interesting information in here, but it's not so much a look-back on the episode as I thought.

Real Science With Andre Bormanis (14:00) is an interesting discussion about the scientific possibilities from ideas invented by Star Trek and so forth.

The Making of Borg Invasion 4-D (9:00) is more of a promotional piece on the attraction but offers a variety of interviews and behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot.

Rounding out the bonus features is a photo gallery. There's also a $5 coupon of the Borg 4-D Invasion attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton inside the packaging, as well as a rebate form when you purchase seasons 5-7 of Voyager.

There are five hidden extras, or Easter Eggs, as well, they're tiny featurettes on specific things. Just click left and right on your remote while in the special features menu to get to them. The menus are very easy to navigate, but over time the menu load time begins to stretch on, and there is no "play all" option for the episodes.

Each episode runs approximately 43 minutes and is organized into eight chapters. Running time for all 24 episodes is roughly 18 hours and 58 minutes. The back of the DVD plastic casing lists episode airdates, episode titles and stardates.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The seventh season is enjoyable here and there with some highlights as well as a few duds, it's good overall. However, the season doesn't end on a consistent and memorable note as it should have. The DVD extras are nice and overall I'm recommending this 7-disc set to fans of the series.

VERDICT: RECOMMENDED

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