Seasons
four and five certainly demonstrated that STAR TREK: VOYAGER had
finally found its own voice and that the series had genuinely become
worthy of the Trek moniker. Moving into season six, the show
continued to produce quality episodes that were entertaining, but more
than a few episodes that made their appearance during the sixth year
seemed a little too lightweight, and moved away from the darker
storytelling of seasons four and five that made the show edgier and far
more compelling than it had been in seasons one, two and three. Of course,
while some of the stories that appeared during season six weren’t as
intriguing as they might have been, STAR TREK: VOYAGER did continue
to deliver in terms of character development across its sixth season,
allowing fans to see different sides of character’s they thought they
already knew.
For
those unfamiliar with STAR TREK: VOYAGER, the basic premise of this
forth Trek incarnation finds the crew of the Federation Starship
Voyager transported halfway across the galaxy and trying to make their way
home from the Delta Quadrant- a seventy-year journey at maximum speed. The
Voyager ship’s crew complement features Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn
Janeway, Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay, Roxann Dawson as Lieutenant
B'Elanna Torres, Robert Duncan McNeill as Ensign Tom Paris, Ethan Phillips
as Neelix, Robert Picardo as The Doctor, Tim Russ as Lieutenant Commander
Tuvok, Jeri
Ryan as Seven of Nine and Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry Kim.
STAR
TREK: VOYAGER- SEASON SIX ($130) comes to DVD in a seven-disc set that
features all twenty-six episodes that were aired in the sixth year. The
twenty-six featured episodes are as follows: Equinox Part 2,
Survival Instinct, Barge Of The Dead, Tinker,
Tenor, Doctor, Spy, Alice, Riddles,
Dragon's Teeth, One Small Step, The
Voyager Conspiracy, Pathfinder, Fair Haven,
Blink Of An Eye, Virtuoso, Memorial,
Tsunkatse, Collective, Spirit Folk,
Ashes To Ashes, Child's Play, Good
Shepherd, Live Fast And Prosper, Muse,
Fury, Life Line, The Haunting Of Deck
Twelve and Unimatrix Zero Part 1.
Personal
favorites among season six’s episodes include: Equinox Part 2
features a darker side of Janeway in part two of this story about Voyager’s
encounter with another Starfleet vessel in the Delta Quadrant. Tinker,
Tenor, Doctor, Spy finds aliens accessing the
doctor’s daydreams with interesting and amusing results. Dragon's
Teeth finds Voyager going from the frying pan into the fire in its
attempt to avoid a conflict with one alien race by forming an alliance
with another. The Voyager Conspiracy is an interesting story
in which rumors of mutiny threaten to shake things up on Voyager. Pathfinder
features appearances by Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi and Dwight Schultz as
an obsessed Lt. Barclay, who is desperate to make contact with Voyager in
the Delta Quadrant. Collective adds a new dynamic to the
starship Voyager, after an encounter with Borg children abandoned by the
collective. Fury marks the return of Kes (Jennifer Lien),
who comes back to Voyager in a very bad mood. Life Line
transmits The Doctor’s program back to the Alpha Quadrant so he can
treat his ailing creator. Unimatrix Zero is a place where
Borg drones regain their individuality for short periods of time, as well
as a potential way destroy the Borg Collective from within.
Paramount
Home Entertainment has made all twenty-six episodes from STAR TREK:
VOYAGER- SEASON SIX available on DVD in the proper full screen aspect
ratios of their original television broadcasts. Not surprisingly, this set
looks great- just as the preceding five seasons of VOYAGER did.
Image quality is generally quite sharp and nicely defined, with filmed
sequences the film sequences appearing a little stronger than those that
feature a bit of postproduction work. An occasional softer looking shot
creeps in from time to time, but nothing excessive. Colors are very
strongly rendered and are free from chroma noise or smearing. . Blacks are
inky, whites appear clean, and although the contrast remains at broadcast
television levels, the picture produces a nicely dimensional quality. Even
with four episodes on a dual layer disc, digital compression artifacts are
always nicely camouflaged.
As
with the earlier boxed sets, all the episodes that comprise STAR TREK:
VOYAGER- SEASON SIX have had their soundtracks upgraded to Dolby
Digital 5.1 channel format. Like the preceding releases, the 5.1 sound
mixes contained herein appear to be direct transcriptions of the
pre-matrixed surround sound stems prepared for the show’s original
television broadcasts. As I stated previously, STAR TREK: VOYAGER
was a well-mixed TV show from late1990’s, so the soundtracks still
manage to be quite effective and engaging. Considering their origins, it
should come as no surprise that the forward soundstage comprises the
strongest portion of the sound design, while the surround channels round
things out with ambient sounds, engine rumble and musical fill. Sequences
with space battles do however; offer more sonic sparks than the more talky
ship bound portions of the show. Fidelity is really great for a television
level production, with the episodic scores producing a nice sense of
musical presence and the sound effects having a convincing quality.
Dialogue is always crisply rendered, plus the bass channel is fairly solid
for a television caliber production. English Dolby Surround soundtracks
are also encoded onto the DVDs, as are English subtitles.
3-D
animation, plus sound serve to enhance the DVD’s interactive menus.
Through the menus one has access to the set up and episode selection
features, as well as the supplemental materials, which have been relegated
to disc seven of the set. Braving the Unknown: Season Six is
a sixteen-minute program that looks back on the highlights of the show’s
sixth year on the air. One Small Step: A Mars Encounter
clocks in at nine minutes and looks at the Mars themed episode, One
Small Step, as well as providing some info on The Planetary
Society. Voyager Time Capsule: Chakotay runs twelve
minutes and features vintage comments from actor Robert Beltran,
discussing his character, as well as recent comments from other cast
members. Red Alert: Amazing Visual Effects is a
seventeen-minute program that focuses on some of the excellent special
effects work produced during the fifth and sixth seasons of VOYAGER.
Guest Star Profile: Vaughn Armstrong is ten-minute profile
of the actor, who has played all sorts of Trek alien characters,
while buried under tons of makeup. A Photo Gallery and the
usual complement of Easter Eggs close out the supplements.
While
not quite as good as seasons four and five, STAR TREK: VOYAGER- SEASON
SIX features its share of top-flight episodes. As for the DVDs,
Paramount does their usual terrific job, delivering the episodes with
strong video and audio presentations. If you are a Trek fan, Voyager
fan or a Seven Of Nine fan in particular, it goes without saying that you’ll
want to add STAR TREK: VOYAGER- SEASON SIX to your Starfleet library.
Seasons
four and five certainly demonstrated that STAR TREK: VOYAGER had
finally found its own voice and that the series had genuinely become
worthy of the Trek moniker. Moving into season six, the show
continued to produce quality episodes that were entertaining, but more
than a few episodes that made their appearance during the sixth year
seemed a little too lightweight, and moved away from the darker
storytelling of seasons four and five that made the show edgier and far
more compelling than it had been in seasons one, two and three. Of course,
while some of the stories that appeared during season six weren’t as
intriguing as they might have been, STAR TREK: VOYAGER did continue
to deliver in terms of character development across its sixth season,
allowing fans to see different sides of character’s they thought they
already knew.
For
those unfamiliar with STAR TREK: VOYAGER, the basic premise of this
forth Trek incarnation finds the crew of the Federation Starship
Voyager transported halfway across the galaxy and trying to make their way
home from the Delta Quadrant- a seventy-year journey at maximum speed. The
Voyager ship’s crew complement features Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn
Janeway, Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay, Roxann Dawson as Lieutenant
B'Elanna Torres, Robert Duncan McNeill as Ensign Tom Paris, Ethan Phillips
as Neelix, Robert Picardo as The Doctor, Tim Russ as Lieutenant Commander
Tuvok, 
STAR
TREK: VOYAGER- SEASON SIX ($130) comes to DVD in a seven-disc set that
features all twenty-six episodes that were aired in the sixth year. The
twenty-six featured episodes are as follows: Equinox Part 2,
Survival Instinct, Barge Of The Dead, Tinker,
Tenor, Doctor, Spy, Alice, Riddles,
Dragon's Teeth, One Small Step, The
Voyager Conspiracy, Pathfinder, Fair Haven,
Blink Of An Eye, Virtuoso, Memorial,
Tsunkatse, Collective, Spirit Folk,
Ashes To Ashes, Child's Play, Good
Shepherd, Live Fast And Prosper, Muse,
Fury, Life Line, The Haunting Of Deck
Twelve and Unimatrix Zero Part 1.
Personal
favorites among season six’s episodes include: Equinox Part 2
features a darker side of Janeway in part two of this story about Voyager’s
encounter with another Starfleet vessel in the Delta Quadrant. Tinker,
Tenor, Doctor, Spy finds aliens accessing the
doctor’s daydreams with interesting and amusing results. Dragon's
Teeth finds Voyager going from the frying pan into the fire in its
attempt to avoid a conflict with one alien race by forming an alliance
with another. The Voyager Conspiracy is an interesting story
in which rumors of mutiny threaten to shake things up on Voyager. Pathfinder
features appearances by Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi and Dwight Schultz as
an obsessed Lt. Barclay, who is desperate to make contact with Voyager in
the Delta Quadrant. Collective adds a new dynamic to the
starship Voyager, after an encounter with Borg children abandoned by the
collective. Fury marks the return of Kes (Jennifer Lien),
who comes back to Voyager in a very bad mood. Life Line
transmits The Doctor’s program back to the Alpha Quadrant so he can
treat his ailing creator. Unimatrix Zero is a place where
Borg drones regain their individuality for short periods of time, as well
as a potential way destroy the Borg Collective from within.
Paramount
Home Entertainment has made all twenty-six episodes from STAR TREK:
VOYAGER- SEASON SIX available on DVD in the proper full screen aspect
ratios of their original television broadcasts. Not surprisingly, this set
looks great- just as the preceding five seasons of VOYAGER did.
Image quality is generally quite sharp and nicely defined, with filmed
sequences the film sequences appearing a little stronger than those that
feature a bit of postproduction work. An occasional softer looking shot
creeps in from time to time, but nothing excessive. Colors are very
strongly rendered and are free from chroma noise or smearing. . Blacks are
inky, whites appear clean, and although the contrast remains at broadcast
television levels, the picture produces a nicely dimensional quality. Even
with four episodes on a dual layer disc, digital compression artifacts are
always nicely camouflaged.
As
with the earlier boxed sets, all the episodes that comprise STAR TREK:
VOYAGER- SEASON SIX have had their soundtracks upgraded to Dolby
Digital 5.1 channel format. Like the preceding releases, the 5.1 sound
mixes contained herein appear to be direct transcriptions of the
pre-matrixed surround sound stems prepared for the show’s original
television broadcasts. As I stated previously, STAR TREK: VOYAGER
was a well-mixed TV show from late1990’s, so the soundtracks still
manage to be quite effective and engaging. Considering their origins, it
should come as no surprise that the forward soundstage comprises the
strongest portion of the sound design, while the surround channels round
things out with ambient sounds, engine rumble and musical fill. Sequences
with space battles do however; offer more sonic sparks than the more talky
ship bound portions of the show. Fidelity is really great for a television
level production, with the episodic scores producing a nice sense of
musical presence and the sound effects having a convincing quality.
Dialogue is always crisply rendered, plus the bass channel is fairly solid
for a television caliber production. English Dolby Surround soundtracks
are also encoded onto the DVDs, as are English subtitles.
3-D
animation, plus sound serve to enhance the DVD’s interactive menus.
Through the menus one has access to the set up and episode selection
features, as well as the supplemental materials, which have been relegated
to disc seven of the set. Braving the Unknown: Season Six is
a sixteen-minute program that looks back on the highlights of the show’s
sixth year on the air. One Small Step: A Mars Encounter
clocks in at nine minutes and looks at the Mars themed episode, One
Small Step, as well as providing some info on The Planetary
Society. Voyager Time Capsule: Chakotay runs twelve
minutes and features vintage comments from actor Robert Beltran,
discussing his character, as well as recent comments from other cast
members. Red Alert: Amazing Visual Effects is a
seventeen-minute program that focuses on some of the excellent special
effects work produced during the fifth and sixth seasons of VOYAGER.
Guest Star Profile: Vaughn Armstrong is ten-minute profile
of the actor, who has played all sorts of Trek alien characters,
while buried under tons of makeup. A Photo Gallery and the
usual complement of Easter Eggs close out the supplements.
While
not quite as good as seasons four and five, STAR TREK: VOYAGER- SEASON
SIX features its share of top-flight episodes. As for the DVDs,
Paramount does their usual terrific job, delivering the episodes with
strong video and audio presentations. If you are a Trek fan, Voyager
fan or a Seven Of Nine fan in particular, it goes without saying that you’ll
want to add STAR TREK: VOYAGER- SEASON SIX to your Starfleet library.