Aug 29 - Retro Review: Hero Worship A young boy who is the sole survivor of a disaster that killed his parents decides to emulate Data.
Aug 21 - Retro Review: New Ground Worf's human mother brings his son Alexander on board, insisting that she can no longer raise the boy.
Aug 14 - Retro Review: A Matter of Time When a visitor from a future era arrives on the ship, Picard asks for assistance about how to save a dying planet.
July 31 - Retro Review: Unification, Part Two Picard learns the reason for Spock's visit to Romulus: an attempted reunification of the Vulcan and Romulan races.
July 17 - Retro Review: Unification, Part One Shocked to learn that Spock may have defected to the Romulans, Picard and Data cross the Neutral Zone in to find him.
July 10 - Retro Review: The Game When an interactive game becomes addictive to the crew, Wesley Crusher and his new girlfriend must save the day.
June 20 - Retro Review: Disaster Troi must take command of the ship while Picard struggles to work with three children and Worf delivers Keiko's baby.
June 6 - Retro Review: Silicon Avatar A scientist pursuing the Crystalline Entity discovers that Data's brain holds her son's memories.
May 30 - Retro Review: Ensign Ro A court-martialed Starfleet officer from occupied Bajor is sent to help locate a terrorist leader.
May 23 - Retro Review: Darmok Picard is exiled with the leader of an alien race who speaks in incomprehensible metaphors.
May 9 - Retro Review: Redemption, Part One When Picard is asked as Arbiter of Succession to oversee Gowron's installation, Worf resigns from Starfleet to fight against the Duras family.
Like its initial run on television, Star Trek: Voyager's first season arrives to mixed reviews on DVD. Most reviewers seemed to feel that the episodes have held up well and admired the packaging, but many were disappointed with the lack of commentary and features given the high price of the boxed set.
Actress Kate Mulgrew now has a home near Cleveland with her husband, an Ohio politician, so the Cleveland Plain Dealer claims her as one of their own. "We might be biased, but we prefer Mulgrew" to Genevieve Bujold, who originally had the role of Janeway, as the paper's review notes, "even if the writers did keep challenging her authority by having top officers disobey her orders." The packaging also scored well in Cleveland.
DVDFile.com's Mike Restaino, a fan of the films more than the TV shows, found wading through a season of Voyager to be challenging given the quantity of storylines and character conflicts. He enjoyed it from "Caretaker", though was unimpressed with the visual effects and said that "as always with a Trek show, there are plenty of crappy episodes and overly sentimental triteness." Calling Voyager "the best-looking Trek series yet", Restaino praised the visuals and sound. He found the extras to be quite brief, was disappointed in the lack of commentaries and noted that there were no DVD-ROM extras, making the $129.95 price tag "a bit steep."
The Digital Bits graded the set a B- across the board for video, audio and extras, with Bill Hunt admitted that Voyager was never his favorite series and its characters never really grabbed him. Though he had been looking forward to giving it a second chance, he found the video quality on this DVD set "very good, but not great", and thought the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix wasn't "quite as immersive as one might like." Like most reviewers, Hunt found the most interesting featurette to be "The First Captain: Bujold", stating that it's fairly obvious why the original Janeway actress was recast. He praised the packaging, "a plastic book-like affair, each page of which holds a disc...attractive and (most importantly) very sturdy." Fans, he said, would love it.
Digitally Obsessed 's Matt Peterson an A-/B average, stating that "Caretaker" is "really one of Trek's greatest pilot episodes" but noting that one of the show's greatest flaws, "its redundant 'will they get home this time?' tease that pops up in multiple episodes", is generated from the outset. The episodes focused on "ideas that are central to the human experience", he found, were somewhat uneven in the abbreviated first season, with the excellent Hiroshima parallel "Jetrel" offset by too much retread on the holographic storylines.
Home Theater Forum called Voyager "the embodiment of the wilting rose on the vine that is the Star Trek franchise", stating that the show has no lustre but "continues to be mildly comforting for those in need of a Star Trek fix." Despite some criticism of the minimal disc and cover art and "somewhat cumbersome package", the look and sound of the episodes receive praise, and the extras all seem to have impressed. "But I think at a price approaching $100 at retail, this abbreviated season will be a tough sell," the review concludes.
