DVD Review: Star Trek Voyager Season 7

What more can you ask for ? Not only do we start off Season 7 with the second part of ‘Unimatrix Zero’ fighting off the Borg but also with the second episode, ‘Imperfection’, we get rid of the ex-Borg kiddies. With this start we hope that Voyager’s final season means business.

And business it does. It’s one of the best seasons of the entire series and has everything a Trekkie could hope for, but does Voyager get home ? We all know Voyager has been struggling and limping from one planet to the next, encountering friend and foe along the way, but it is the journey that has been at the heart of the series but since we know this is the last season we also know that the bets are off and not everyone may make the journey to its end. This season does have everything, we start off with Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), Torres (Roxann Dawson) and Tuvok (Tim Russ) in Borg guise onboard a cube mixing it with a Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson) and her collective, we have Icheb (Manu Intiraymi) risking his life and cortex node to save Seven of Nine, as her Borg implants are malfunctioning and threatening her life. And that is only for starters. There’s even a race that they enter the Delta Flyer, which ends up an excuse for a little proposing from Mr Paris. ‘Repression’ plays as Trek meets noir and Tuvok gets to play detective. Oh, and Tuvok’s Vulcan hormones kick in, and he needs a hand to get over things, quite literally.

But the star of the season is definitely the Doctor (Robert Picardo). The EMH has always had some laughs along the way but in this season he does more than ever before, striving to be more than just his programming he evens fights for the rites to be treated as a person and champions the rites for holograms throughout the universe. Bold steps indeed but they also land on Captain Janeway’s toes more than a few times. The Doctor manages to get pride of place in the ‘Time Capsule’ featurette on disc 7 showcasing some of his finest moments. So what else do we have, well, yes we have the normal Klingon episode, ‘Prophecy’, in which Harry (Garrett Wang) nearly gets more than what he bargained for and Torres certainly does. There’s a time travel tale in ‘Shattered’, which also serves as a flashback down memory lane for the audience to the previous six seasons. A Hirogen two-parter which is thankfully edited to a movie length episode, but they play the hunted this time pursued by a renegade group of Holograms, one of which has something nearing a god complex. Even Q (John de Lancie) pays a visit to Auntie Kate with his rebellious son, Q2 (Keegan de Lancie), in tow.

Action packed and full of morality, even Harry Kim gets to play Captain ! Knock out episodes are ‘Friendship One’ where an Earth sent probe has virtually decimated an entire civilisation, the aforementioned Hirogen two-parter, ‘Flesh and Blood Parts 1 & 2’, and more Doctor fun and frolics in ‘Author Author’. The opening sequence of 'Endgame Parts 1 & 2', the season and series finale, will blow your socks off. There are loads of extras on the last disc, which is the norm for these sets and the production, sound and transfer of the episodes are absolutely great. They have really pulled out the purse strings for this series; the effects are bigger, more frequent and slicker than their usual high standard. Although there is a Season 7 overview, where is the series end party ? Check out all over the ship too on this disc, as they are loads of Easter eggs for the finding. It seems strange that Neelix (Ethan Philips) even throws a party to celebrate First Contact the same day that ‘Star Trek First Contact’ gets its Special Edition release (see separate review). A coincidence, time travel shenanigans or just plain spooky ? Overall, a class act, and a fitting farewell.