At this point, we reach the end of Deep Space Nine and hand off to Voyager. From this point forward, Voyager will be the only Trek on the air for the next two years. However, Voyager originally ran on UPN and had to deal with network interference. As Ira Behr, DS9’s executive producer, pointed out, that left the other show to its own devices. While both shows ran, Voyager benefitted from some degree of independence. After Season 5, however, some of the main cast would be downgraded to almost recurring status. Naomi Wildman, whom they did the “kid trick” familiar to soap opera babies, received more interesting storylines than Chakotay and Harry Kim in the final two seasons. But while DS9 remained on the air, Paramount’s attention was split. And UPN let its parent company drive the bus.
Deep Space Nine – Season 7
Producers set up a helluvan endgame for our station near Bajor. Kira is a colonel. Odo is causing the Vorta to doubt themselves. The O’Brien/Bashir bromance is in full bloom, and Bashir does not handle O’Brien’s pending transfer to Starfleet Academy well. Oh, and there’s a new Dax, an untrained Trill woman named Ezri, implanted without any planning. (It was that or Dax would go the way of Jadzia.) Worf has trouble adjusting, and it doesn’t help the new station’s counselor’s initiate training consists of a handful of brochures and “Good luck!” The previous hosts are no help. At one point, unresolved issues between Worf and Jadzia drive the pair to sleep together. And try integrating with your symbiont when your previous hosts include the horny and hedonistic Curzon and the homicidal sociopath Joran. (How the symbiosis commission missed a guy Lon Suder from Voyager could lecture them about escapes me. But… Bureaucracy.)
But Season 7 is one long novel. And in fact, Voyager is also drifting in that direction. The suggested binge chronologies all have viewers alternating episodes through episode 10, interrupting for Insurrection and flipping for a Voyager two-parter, then resuming until episode 15. Voyager itself has a Seven of Nine-centered arc from episodes 16-20, and then we switch back to DS9 episode 16, continuing to the series finale.
The Dominion has fallen back and brought the Breen into the fold. The Breen are occasionally mentioned prior to this, including a sarcastic comment in Generations by Riker. Here, they’re introduced as basically the assholes of the Alpha Quadrant, something even the newly allied Romulans have pointed out. Their internal dysfunction will come home to roost in Discovery‘s final season, but a 32nd century Trek wasn’t even thought of in 1997. But now there’s a new enemy in the fold. Dukat has returned, and he’s an emissary like Sisko, only of the pagh wraiths, Bajor’s version of demons. They transform him into a Bajoran. After having a Jim Jones moment on Empok Nor, neglecting to drink his own Kool-Aid, he travels to Bajor and corrupts the already corrupted Kai Winn. They are going to release the pagh wraiths.
A lot of threads get wrapped up in this. The Federation-Klingon-Romulan alliance tightens the noose around the Dominion (and it’s suggested the Gorn are playing spoiler since they are the demon lizards we know.) But the Prophets warn Sisko not to marry Kassidy Yates. It will only bring them sorrow. And Gowron, as insecure as ever, decides to interfere, prompting Worf to finally confront the bug-eyed chancellor. Killing Gowron would give him the High Council, but Worf has grown and is self-aware enough to know he’s not chancellor material. He defers to Martok, who is still chancellor as late as the future events of the 2009 Star Trek. And speaking of leadership changes, Quark and Rom’s mother has so influenced Grand Nagus Zek he’s decided to grant women the right to wear clothes and make profit. And retire. And who does he pick to run the Ferengi Alliance? Much to Quark’s dismay, he names Rom as his successor.
Deep Space Nine has possibly the best finale of all Trek series. TOS ended with the unforgettable The Undiscovered Country and TNG went out on a high note with “All Good Things” and again in the Picard finale, “The Last Generation.” Over the course of 90 minutes, every thread not addressed in the previous five episodes is wrapped up. But it isn’t just the crew sailing off into retirement or going on with normal life without the audience. O’Brien is going back to Earth. Odo is rejoining the Founders to teach them how to survive in the postwar world. Jake and Nog are already established in their respective careers while Julian and Ezri are a couple. Worf is now accepted again by the Klingons and going to Qo’noS to be a bridge between the Federation and the Empire. Garak must rebuild Cardassia, a difficult job since, as he confesses, “We are guilty.”
The one sour note is Sisko’s fate. His ultimate sacrifice and destination are no surprise. All of Seasons 6 & 7 had been a build-up to Sisko joining the Prophets. And crescendoing the conflict between Dukat and Sisko could only end in that apocalyptic battle (with Kai Winn having a satisfying exit. Well, Winn might disagree, but who cares what Space Karen thinks?) Plus the final scene between Kassidy and Sisko is perfect, added at the insistence of Avery Brooks so Sisko wouldn’t be “yet another black man abandoning his family.” But it feels rushed. In the last twenty minutes of the show, Sisko is interrupted at Vic’s (featuring the brilliant James Darren as their holographic host Vic Fontaine) and rushes off to confront Dukat. It always left me with the impression they forgot the climactic confrontation of the entire series and tacked it on. It should have been handled more smoothly. But in combination with the rest of “What You Leave Behind,” it’s satisfying. Open-ended with a lot of change in the offing, but a good stopping point.
Insurrection
Nemesis might be reviled as the worst of Trek movies (edging out the unintentionally funny Star Trek V), but Insurrection is the weakest. I regret to inform you it will not make your boobs feel firmer. Yes, that’s a line in the movie. To sum up, Data goes berzerk on a planet with a seemingly prewarp society. Admiral Dougherty contacts the Enterprise to find out how to shut him off. Picard and company bail on their diplomatic mission and head for a region of space called the Briar Patch that makes DS9’s Badlands look like a stretch of surface street in need of some pothill filling. They convince Worf, arrived from Deep Space 9 for… reasons and arrive at said planet to discover Data has exposed Starfleet’s holographic duck blind. Why? The Son’a, a race of aliens addicted to facelifts and led by Ruafo (F. Murray Abraham). Ruafo is impatient with all this silly Starfleet ethical stuff. He’s got a planet to devastate so he can harvest the radiation of its rings. Starfleet plans to move the natives, called the Bak’u, using a holodeck on a cloaked ship, to transplant them to a similar world. As it turns out, Picard’s new girlfriend, Anij, looks rather stunning for a 300-year-old woman. (Liam Shaw will hilariously call out Picard for this in Picard Season 3 in a sort of voice of the audience moment.) She’s gorgeous and old because of the planet’s rings, which freezes aging. The Bak’u settled here, abandoned technology, and stopped aging. And the Enterprise crew notices they are growing younger. Riker and Troi are suddenly horny for each other. Geordi’s eyes become normal, if only temporarily. Worf gets a zit. Being a Klingon, it’s one impressive zit. And Crusher and Troi notice their boobs are getting firmer. But what’s happening is illegal. And the Son’a turn out to be thugs (mentioned later on Deep Space Nine.) Picard confronts Dougherty, who is promptly killed by facelift by Ruafo. Riker takes the Enterprise and goes into battle, weaponizing the ship’s warp core. Picard kills Ruafo, blows up his ring destroying machine, and promises to spend nearly a year’s accumulated leave banging Anij. Punchline: The Son’a are actually Bak’u who got bored and left, but now they have to use facelifts and genetic manipulation to stay alive.
It’s not really a strong story. There’s barely enough for a two-part episode, which mercifully would have cut about thirty minutes. Jonathan Frakes as director is not given much to work with in the script and opts to focus on giving us lush photography and letting the cast be the cast. The TNG cast is one of the most tight-knit in Trekdom. Their banter and familiarity are this film’s strength. Director Frakes emphasizes humor and isn’t afraid to direct himself in a sizable number of scenes. Sadly (especially for wife Genie Francis), he shaves his beard midway through the movie. It’s not a bad movie, but it is a letdown after the brilliance that was First Contact.
Voyager – Season 5
Season 5 is peak Voyager. It leads off with “Night,” where the ship crosses a void, and it becomes painfully obvious this is a ship far from home. Janeway withdraws from the crew, and the crew members themselves are incredibly bored. It has lasting effects. Later on, B’Elanna will consistently take risks simply to deal with being stranded decades from home.
The new rivals are temporary, as befitting a ship racing across the Delta Quadrant. Back home, you can leave Earth and be on Bajor in days, Cardassia in even less time, and beyond explored space after that. The Malon are persistent pests, a species who dumps their irradiated waste anywhere not Malon. They will harbor a deep resentment against Voyager as Janeway uses their vortex (really just another wormhole) to shave a few more years off their trip then promptly destroy it. However, the Malon are killing a species in subspace, so Voyager has made a new ally.
There are some harrowing episodes. In “Timeless,” Harry and Chakotay pull a Lost (or maybe Lost pulled a Voyager) where the pair gets back to the Alpha Quadrant as the only survivors of a slipstream test that resulted in Voyager crashing. They attempt to send a signal back into time to prevent the accident, but Captain Geordi LaForge (Levar Burton, who also directed) tries to stop them. After all, temporal manipulation is a big taboo even in Discovery‘s 32nd century. In “Latent Image,” the Doctor realizes the crew has been editing his memories as he’s not equipped to handle PTSD. In “Thirty Days,” Tom Paris gets demoted and confined to the brig when he defies orders to save a world. He regrets nothing, and it’s a turning point for the character.
The creepiest episode is “Think Tank,” where Jason Alexander plays Kurros, an alien who seems to have all the answers to Voyager‘s problems, but it will come at a price. His group wants Seven of Nine. And if they don’t agree, he’s perfectly willing to make a deal with the Malon, who are still upset Janeway took away their prize toxic waste dump.
The season ends with a rather frightening cliffhanger, Equinox. They find another Federation starship displaced by the caretaker, but their method of covering so much ground comes at the expense of an alien species. The Equinox is in dire straits, and the Voyager crew begins moving in the same direction: Get home at all costs.
More than any other season, Season 5 brings home Voyager‘s utter isolation in the Delta Quadrant. Gone are the Kazon, the Vidiians, and the Talaxians. The Borg are more an unseen threat than an omnipresent menace. More aliens are scared of Seven of Nine than the Borg themselves, though our favorite bionic zombies make a couple of appearances.