Star Trek: Voyager-Season 4 (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Star Trek	Main Menu Introduction Menu Audio Featurette-Braving The Unknown: Season 4 Featurette-Voyager Time Capsule: Seven Of Nine Featurette-Voyager Time Capsule: Harry Kim Featurette-Red Alert: Amazing Visual FX Featurette-The Art Of Alien Worlds Featurette-Voyager's Release Party Gallery-Photo Trailer-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Featurette-The Birth Of Species 8472 Trailer-Star Trek: The Next Generation Easter Egg-5
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	1145:54 (Case: 1144)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (7)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Gabrielle Beaumont Kenneth Biller Cliff Bole John Bruno
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Kate Mulgrew Robert Beltran Roxann Dawson Jennifer Lien Robert Duncan McNeill Ethan Phillips Robert Picardo Tim Russ Jeri Ryan Garrett Wang
Case	?
RPI	$149.95	Music	Paul Baillargeon David Bell Jay Chattaway

    Picking up right where the series left off with one of the best cliffhangers of the Star Trek series, Star Trek: Voyager – Season 4 plummets the crew right back into the thick of things.

    The fourth year of the show sees the departure of the little Ocampan girl Kes (Jennifer Lien), who would appear in a few guest roles throughout the rest of the series, most notably the impressive Fury. Replacing Kes is the former Borg drone Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), who remains with the crew until the ship’s final voyage in Endgame.

    The rest of the crew are still there and going strong, with the formidable Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) showing a more motherly and human side in this season, and her second in command Chakotay (Robert Beltran) growing into a more fatherly role – together, the parents of the family that is the crew. We also have an unlikely love-hate romance develop between the ship’s helm officer Ensign Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) and the chief engineer B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson). Chief of security Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ) has his investigative skills challenged more than once, and Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) gets his chance to save the ship from a race of violent aliens. The holographic doctor (Robert Picardo) works on expanding his personality and programming and gets the chance to help another crew member discover her humanity at the same time. And Neelix (Ethan Phillips) settles in as the hokey ship chef who provides the occasional odd laugh along the crew’s long journey home...

Disc 1

1. Scorpion: Part II (44:01)

    Will Janeway manage to keep her bargain with the Borg, or will their inevitable treachery break the alliance and allow Species 8472 to cleanse the Alpha Quadrant?

2. The Gift (44:05)

    With Kes’ psychic abilities going into overdrive, and Voyager crippled in space with a hostile ex-Borg on board, Janeway must make a decision as to how to save her vessel.

3. Day of Honor (44:05)

    A shuttle accident leaves Paris and B’Elanna stranded in spacesuits with only a few hours of oxygen to keep them alive.

4. Nemesis (44:05)

    Lost in a no man’s land after his shuttle is shot down, Chakotay finds he must take sides in a war against a people’s ruthless enemy.

Disc 2

5. Revulsion (44:04)

    As relations between Paris and B’Elanna heat up, Harry finds himself inexorably attracted to Seven of Nine. And the Doctor encounters an unstable holographic lifeform on an alien vessel.

6. The Raven (44:02)

    Seven of Nine finds herself drawn to a planet in alien space after experiencing strange nightmares of a raven.

7. Scientific Method (44:05)

    A series of odd medical phenomena leads the Doctor to suspect that the crew are being experimented on by unseen aliens.

8. Year Of Hell: Part I (44:06)

    When Voyager enters a vast region of space, the crew find themselves in the middle of a war, under attack by a species with time weapons.

Disc 3

9. Year Of Hell: Part II (44:11)

    With Voyager badly beaten and Chakottay and Paris captives of the Krenom, can Janeway find a way to bring the year of hell to an end?

10. Random Thoughts (44:05)

    A murder on a peace loving planet is linked to a fleeting thought of B’Elanna’s. When she is arrested to be purged of violent thought, Tuvok goes undercover into the society’s underworld to discover the truth for himself.

11. Concerning Flight (44:07)

    When technology is stolen from Voyager by a raiding party, Janeway finds she must work with a holographic recreation of Leonardo DiVinci to get her technology back.

12. Mortal Coil (44:06)

    After Neelix dies and is brought back to life, he struggles with his conception of the afterlife when he remembers nothing from being dead other than void.

Disc 4

13. Waking Moments (44:00)

    The crew begin seeing a strange alien in their nightmares and start to realise that they are under attack by a race of aliens that exist in the sleeping world.

14. Message In A Bottle (44:07)

    A series of connected satellites gives Voyager the chance to contact home. But in order to do so, they must send the Doctor through to the Alpha Quadrant. The only problem is, the vessel that the Doctor arrives upon has been taken over by Romulans.

15. Hunters (44:05)

    A message from home gets trapped in one of the alien satellites. In order to get the information, Voyager must trespass into Hirogen territory.

16. Prey (44:05)

    A pair of Hirogen hunting a wounded member of Species 8472 soon become the hunted themselves. And Voyager is the next hunting ground.

Disc 5

17. Retrospect (44:03)

    Seven of Nine accuses an arms trader of assaulting her and stealing Borg technology. While the Doctor races to her cause, Janeway is more sceptical.

18. The Killing Game: Part I (44:06)

    The crew find themselves trapped in a holographic recreation of WWII, without any memories of who they are, playing violent games of life and death with the Hirogen.

19. The Killing Game: Part II (44:00)

    With WWII loose throughout the ship, will the Allies win, or will the Hirogen wipe out the crew with their army of Nazi holograms?

20. Vis a Vis (44:05)

    An alien pilot steals Tom’s body which leads Voyager to track back a series of people who have had their identities stolen.

Disc 6

21. The Omega Directive (44:05)

    When the ship is brought to a dead stop in space, Janeway must reveal to the crew the nature of the Omega Directive in order to enlist their help to destroy a science experiment.

22. Unforgettable (44:02)

    Chakotay is sceptical when an alien claims that the two were in love, and that he cannot remember because people cannot retain memories of her race.

23. Living Witness (44:02)

    Was Voyager a vicious battleship that ravaged a world? Or can the Doctor defend the crew’s good name 700 years in the future?

24. Demon (44:05)

    With their supply of deuterium running dangerously low, the crew must land on a Demon-class planet where the atmosphere is toxic and highly dangerous.

Disc 7

25. One (44:02)

    The crew are forced into status after encountering a toxic nebula, leaving Seven and the Doctor to maintain the ship. Can they survive the isolation and the expanse?

26. Hope And Fear (44:05)

    The message from home is finally decoded and tells of a possible way home, in the form of a new kind of starship capable of travelling beyond warp speed. When the crew find the vessel they must decide whether it is a ruse or the real thing.

    Voyager: Season 4 is one full-on season, with two of the best two-parters for the series, plus the conclusion to perhaps the best ever Voyager two parter. Taking the season in whole, this is also a consistently strong year for the series with only a couple of mediocre episodes that are well compensated for by the host of other excellent ones.

    The addition of the statuesque Jeri Ryan as the Borg trying to become human, Seven of Nine, also adds a whole new dimension to the show – one that was hitherto lacking. The quest for humanity, even amidst all that technology, is one of the most important themes of the Star Trek franchise, and Seven’s journey of rediscovery is one that is a delight to watch.

    Love it or hate it, the fourth season of Voyager is great late-night science fiction. It’s not Joss Wheedon’s Firefly, but it is very entertaining and quite addictive TV – if you’ve never given this a shot before, now is the time to delve into the Delta Quadrant.

Video

    As with all previous Star Trek series, barring the original show from the 1960s, this has been filmed on 35mm film and then transferred to NTSC video with a 1.33:1, Full Frame, aspect ratio. This original broadcast ratio is what has been used for the transfer to DVD.

    This transfer is much smoother than previous seasons, with all the posterisation gone, and only some minor graininess in low-level light. Plus, the cross-colouration is now virtually non-existent.

    Colours are outstanding and shadow detail is excellent. The image is very sharp and well defined, and you will have no problems discerning what is going on.

    There are no glaring MPEG artefacts, however there was a bit of annoying dot crawl. This tends to be noticeable in the background and on luminescent panels, particularly in lower light. When the ship is at red alert, the panel behind Harry looks really messy from a distance.

    Film artefacts are virtually non-existent – you can hunt for them if you like, but there was nothing distracting.

    As with all the Star Trek DVD releases, we are given subtitle options in: English for the Hearing Impaired, regular English, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Nowegian and Swedish. They appear as white with a grey/black border and convey the dialogue without verbatim reproduction.

    The dual-layer pause is between the episodes, with two episodes per layer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The show’s original English 2.0 Dolby Surround soundtrack has been remastered into a full 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround field to give the show a little more kick. For the most part this is quite effective.

    The dialogue is exceptionally well reproduced, with no clarity issues, and no audio sync faults that I could detect.

    The score seemed a little underplayed in some parts, and although it should never really dominate, I felt that it could have been used a little more in some places for emotional effect. Instead, it seems to remain as a bit of an undercurrent. This is largely my personal preference, though.

    There is quite a bit of surround work here, with things flying in from behind and photon torpedoes going back and forth, and phaser blasts hitting the ship sounding like they are hitting behind your head. Good stuff.

    The subwoofer is also put to good use, and gives off a hearty boom on some of the impacts to the ship and to other vessels. While this still doesn’t quite have the depth of cinematic explosions, like when the Borg vessel explodes in Star Trek: First Contact, it’s not bad.

    Accompanying the English track we have audio in German 5.1 Dolby Digital, and Spanish, French and Italian in 2.0 Dolby Surround overdub. These alternate audio tracks lose ambience and surround due to the overdub process, and the 2.0 Dolby surround mixes are much thinner than the 5.1 Dolby Digital mixes. They will do the job, though, if you need a foreign language and can’t be bothered reading subtitles.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.33:1 Full Frame. The main menus are a CGI recreation of the Borg vessel flying through space which then sits at four different angles representing the four episodes on the disc with a 2.0 Dolby Surround track playing the show’s theme. The episode menus have an ambient 2.0 Dolby Stereo track and are static until you hit Launch, and then the ship takes off with a nice directional audio cue. All other sub-menus are static and silent.

Booklet

    Star Trek: Voyager – Season 4 is packaged in a hard plastic case with a booklet summarising the episodes.

Disc 7

    Once more, Paramount Home Entertainment have provided an assortment of extras on the 7th disc. These extras are all presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, with 2.0 Dolby Stereo audio, unless otherwise specified. Interviews are in 1.85:1, letterboxed within the 1.33:1 frame.

Featurette – “Braving The Unknown: Season 4” (21:08)

    Another good season overview with interviews with the creators and cast members.

Featurette – “Voyager Time Capsule: Seven of Nine” (13:45)

    A look at the character of Seven of Nine and Jeri Ryan joining the cast – her impression of Star Trek and her involvement with it.

Featurette – “Voyager Time Capsule: Harry Kim” (14:10)

    A good look at the character of Ensign Kim, with a great interview with Garrett Wang talking about his involvement with the series and the franchise and what he is doing with himself since the series finished.

Featurette – “Red Alert: Amazing Visual Effects” (11:00)

    A look at the special effects for Season 4 based around an interview with Dan Curry, the visual effects producer.

Featurette – “The Art Of Alien Worlds” (10:42)

    Looks at the matt-painting artwork that was done in Star Trek to create alien environments and the various planets that Voyager travels to. Includes another interview with Dan Curry.

Featurette – “Voyager Release Party” (5:17)

    A look at the Star Trek: Voyager DVD release party.

Photo Gallery (7:36)

    A series of 40 inset stills from the production of this season of the show.

Trailer – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD (4:48)

    A far more in-depth promo regarding the release of Deep Space Nine on DVD.

Featurette – “The Birth Of Species 8472” (9:34)

    A look at the creation of the species more powerful than the Borg, especially the CGI used to create them.

Trailer – Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD (1:10)

    A short promo for the DVD release of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Lost Transmissions from The Delta Quadrant (Hidden Files)

    There are 6 Lost Transmissions, which are easy enough to find by just playing around with your remote until you highlight one of the inset panels on Voyager:

• Transmission 01 (1:44) is a 1998 interview with Jeri Ryan getting her impressions of the show.
• Transmission 02 (3:22) is an interview with Tim Russ talking about his directorial work on the episode Living Witness.
• Transmission 03 (0:55) is a brief interview with Jeri Ryan right after she started in 1997.
• Transmission 04 (1:24) is an interview with Ethan Philips talking about how it was to play a Telaxian playing a Klingon in The Killing Game: Part II and how much make-up he had to wear.
• Transmission 05 (1:29) looks at the naming of Seven of Nine.
• Transmission 06 (2:50) looks at the making of the episode Hunters and the introduction of the Hirogen.

    From what I can tell, the R1 release does not have:

• a booklet providing episode summaries;
• hard plastic case packaging;
• Trailer – Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD;
• Trailer – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD;

    Otherwise, these would appear to be identical.

    Other than the slightly better resolution of the R4 PAL video format, which may be counteracted by the fact that this has had to be transferred from an NTSC source, I really see no reason to favour one over the other. Vote with your wallet.

    Star Trek: Voyager – Season 4 is great fun, and one of the best seasons of the Voyager series. Still not quite as good as Season 5 in my opinion, but that’s just subjective thought and other fans out there will disagree.

    Video is excellent, probably the best Voyager transfer to date.

    The 5.1 Dolby Digital remix is well done, but has still yet to achieve that cinematic scope that it has the potential to.

    The extras are okay, but again I think we come up a little light. Bring on the audio commentaries and the deleted scenes!

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall