Star Trek: EVERY Season Ranked Worst To Best

This may sound repetitive but as this was Voyager's first year, they were just settling into the roles etc. etc.

Voyager managed to benefit from the fact that the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine had already been well established on television before Captain Janeway took command. In fact, with many of the production staff being shared across the different shows, there was a wealth of talent to help the show get off its landing struts.

Much about the first season works very, very well. The visuals were excellent, particularly in Caretaker. There were certainly pacing issues but the show overcame that quickly enough.

This was also another decidedly Starfleet series, whereas Deep Space Nine was mixing Starfleet with Bajor and Cardassia. That led to inevitable comparisons with the Next Generation, which had followed a very similar format.

There is an argument that, to Voyager's detriment, it didn't go dark enough. It could have been a ship left damaged, without any aid coming, that would have to find its way back home. However, Deep Space Nine was already (slowly) heading into darker territory and having the ship battered from week to week ran the risk of turning viewers off, not to mention the early aversions to serialised television.

The decision was made to have Voyager in pristine condition each week, which was something of a stretch. However, removing the worry of keeping the ship together allowed more time to work on the crew. It was an uneven first year, yet enjoyable all the same.