Often the subject of disagreement, Voyager is talked about poorly by some and praised by others. Seeing plenty of posts about it here. Well ya know - I think Voyager is underrated.
That show took risks. They ran some stories that were just risky in terms of writing and production - sometimes it was a hit, sometimes a stinker. That's why it has some amazing episodes and some really really stupid ones, because they were willing to take a chance on something uncertain. And I respect that, too many shows these days feel like the same recycled crap because television has become so risk-averse and they're not willing to take a chance on something that might turn out dumb.
So we got ones like the infamous warp 10 episode, and those are remembered as cases where the show got really dumb. But as an example, Seven of Nine could've completely bombed that show. Yes it looked like they were bringing on a bimbo for sex appeal, and they absolutely could've went that route with her. Fans might've hated the change no matter what. I mean, that's a big deal, losing a main character and adding a new one - shows don't always survive that.
Also there are things I notice from a production standpoint. From reading about the making of TNG, one thing I remember is them talking about never wanting to damage the costumes or get them dirty, or damage the set. That increases their production costs, cheaper to just not do that.
But Voyager does this all the time. Uniforms are always getting burned and torn, Neelix spills things on his shirt, the bridge is shown being blown up or completely transformed. All the times they have smoke inside there, there's something with water, parts are broken off - that's something they had to clean up for the next episode. If they show burn marks on the captain's chair, that means they'll have to be cleaned or the whole prop replaced, at the risk of it not being identical or impossible to fix.
So the point is - respect for taking those risks. Didn't always land, but plenty of them did.
I agree with this, and to put it politely Voyager is far from my favorite Trek show. I understand that the main reason for this is that I didn't click with the main cast as so many who love Voyager do, and that is 100% subjective. Even though I like fewer episodes than I dislike which I've seen, the appeal for someone whose taste is different than mine is obvious. Every trek show has oddness or persistent issues but these are typically forgivable because of the other strengths of the show. That the strengths of this show didn't click with me doesn't mean it's nothing more than its bad parts. All this being said I love the character of Janeway and Kate Mulgrew's performance as the character. I also find it amusing the extremely high number of times the character has been performed committing atrocities even though in most ;) instances it wasn't the real prime Janeway.