Star Trek Voyager - Season 1 (Slimline Edition) [DVD] [1995]

So much seemed dramatically promising in this debut, especially the unwieldy alliance of Starfleet regulars and hostile Maquis, and the likelihood that a lifetime spent in isolation, trying to get home, would lead to the development of a self-contained society on the ship, yet Voyager never entirely made up its mind what it was supposed to be about. The curiously cheesy sets and fascinating, progressive management style of Janeway (half mommy, half taskmaster) were also new developments in Star Trek culture. As the 16-episode season continued, character backstories were developed in such episodes as "The Cloud" (arguably the best episode of the season), "Eye of the Needle" (underscoring Janeway and the crew's sadness), "State of Flux" (in which a search for a traitor reveals a past romance between Commander Chakotay, played by Robert Beltran, and sexy Bajoran engineer Seska, played by Martha Hackett), and "Jetrel" (which explores the character of Neelix, the Talaxian played by Ethan Phillips, during a parable about scientific ethics and moral responsibility).

Among other notable episodes, "Phage" strikes a nice balance among character development, story hook, and moral and emotional conflict when Neelix is literally robbed of his lungs by the Vidiians, a once-civilized people who are combating a deadly disease called the Phage by stealing organs. (The disease would return in "Faces," a fine showcase for Roxann Biggs-Dawson as Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres.) "Emanations" stirred controversy among the series' producers and some fans for its philosophical look at death, and "Time and Again" is a unique time-travel story in which Janeway and Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) get caught in a subspace fracture that places them just hours before they know a planet is going to be destroyed. In "Prime Factors," latent tensions among Voyager personnel erupts into serious conflict, an issue revisited in the season finale, "Learning Curve." Despite a pat ending that resolves the Maquis conflict much too easily, the episode drives home the fact that Voyager and its crew are all alone, making the most of a difficult predicament. --Tom Keogh and Jeff Shannon

Synopsis
Another spin-off of the Star Trek series, this time focusing on the Federation starship USS Voyager as its crew bands together with a group of Maquis rebels to return home from the far-flung Delta Quadrant. This set includes all 15 episodes from season one of the the Emmy-award winning series including the feature length first episode 'The Caretaker'. When Starfleet Security Officer Tuvok, working undercover aboard a vessel commandeered by a band of renegade freedom fighters, disappears the U.S.S. Voyager, under the guidance of Captain Kathryn Janeway (Star Trek's very first female captain), is dispatched to find him. During hot pursuit, both ships are mysteriously transported to the Delta Quadrant, 70,000 light years away. Now the only hope for escape is an unlikely collaboration between the two crews.

• DVD & Blu-ray > Television > TV Series

• Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?