Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has been renewed for a second season before the first season premieres

As much as fans like to praise Star Trek as groundbreaking science fiction, it’s important to remember that for most of the franchise’s history, Trek was weekly procedural television. Until the streaming era, each series produced about 26 episodes a year, and by the later seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, some of the creative team had been in the business of making Star Trek for over a decade. The franchise was a crossover commercial success, the kind of success that money men like to leave exactly as is as long as it is in steady numbers.
The operation was essentially on track, and there was a lot of studio and network pressure to keep it that way, which explains the general smoothness of Voyager and the early years of its successor, Enterprise. The last few years of Trek’s golden age were plagued by creative exhaustion and, consequently, laziness. Concepts from previous series were revisited, often with diminishing returns, and potentially innovative ideas were rejected from above to avoid upsetting the apple cart.
That’s not to say that Star Trek: Voyager isn’t still a solid television show and even a favorite of many Trekkies. The saga of Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and her gallant crew finding their way home from the far reaches of the galaxy may not be as ambitious as it could have been, but it’s consistently entertaining, which is why new and nostalgic fans alike will enjoy it. -it as a cozy “comfort view”. For our part, though, we tend to like episodes that have a certain emotional intensity or creative spark, that feel like conceptual or stylistic risks. As such, you may find that our list of the 10 best Voyager episodes differs greatly from some of the others out there. We liked it when Voyager dared to be heavy, or silly, or sentimental, or mean-spirited. So, without further ado, let’s raise a glass to the journey…
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10. Counterpoint (Season 5, Episode 10)

Counterpoint places the audience in the middle of an ongoing story, in which Voyager is boarded and inspected by agents of a fascist government, the Devore. The Devore treat all travelers who pass through their space with suspicion, but are particularly concerned with capturing and detaining all telepaths, whom they consider dangerous. Despite the risks, Captain Janeway is trying to smuggle a group of telepathic refugees to safety, while also putting on a show of cooperation for the smiling Inspector Devore Kashyk (Mark Harelik). Much of the plot takes place in the background, hidden from the public to create suspense. The real focus is on the evolving dynamic between Janeway and Kashyk, a rivalry that turns into one of the Voyager captain’s rare romances. Kashyk works in the service of what are, transparently, space Nazis, but when he offers to defect to Voyager, can his intentions be trusted?
In addition to its intriguing premise, Counterpoint is a particularly strong production, with many subtle touches of creative flair. Director Les Landau and cinematographer Marvin Rush, who have worked on Star Trek since the 1980s, shoot this story, breaking away from Voyager’s uniform lighting and predictable camera movements to make some very deliberate choices that build to a big deal. . of tension surrounding what is essentially a bottle episode. The makeup team, overseen by equally experienced Trek veteran Michael Westmore, provides a memorable and imaginative makeup design for an alien astrophysicist who appears in all two scenes of this episode and is never used again. Above all, Kate Mulgrew delivers what may be her most nuanced human performance in the entire series, embodying Janeway’s famous conviction and strength of will while also granting a rare glimpse into her more vulnerable side, without ever straying. for melodrama.