'Star Trek: Voyager' gets an unofficial 4K remaster thanks to AI

[Reality]

'Star Trek: Voyager' gets an unofficial 4K remaster thanks to AI

As with Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager is unlikely to ever get an official high-resolution remaster. The effects were shot on video rather than added to film after the fact, making it much harder to upgrade the quality than it was for The Next Generation. However, an unofficial project might get relatively close. Series fan Billy Reichard has started processing Voyager with a machine learning program that upgrades that '90s era image quality as much as possible. You won't forget that the show was made for tube TVs given the aspect ratio, but the AI is surprisingly effective -- it produces something you probably wouldn't mind watching on an idle afternoon if you're a Star Trek devotee.

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[YosemiteSam]

I saw this in my new feed, but really hadn't read it as of yet.

I just started Voyager series again. At one time it was my favorite of all the series. Now, I don't think I really hold any favorites among them except to say Deep Space Nine (which I actually really like now) is definitely not my favorite among them.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

This is good news. Some Trek fans like to bash Voyager, but I think it was good. It just took some time to get its legs.

 

[Runwildboys]

I liked Voyager, and I may check this out, once I'm done watching the remastered original series.

 

[CyberB0b]

I've never seen it. Time to watch it now.

 

[DallasEast]

Star Trek nerd opinion rant time

Both Deep Space Nine and Voyager suffered from a singular problem entertaining core Star Trek fans. Both series were formatted to emulate The Next Generation. TNG had well-written philosophical episodes from the start. Early on, DS9 and Voyager episodes tried excessively hard to distance themselves from TNG's concept.

The hardline approach lead to some weaker initial storyline narratives. I think DS9 focused way too much on the Ferengi at times and not enough on the Bajorian/Cardassian historical conflict. Also, I believe they did not develop Sisko's emissary role as much as it could have been.

Similarly, Voyager was saddled with the crude Kazon empire as primary antagonists at series' start. Plus, Kes and Neelix were not extremely strong supporting characters.

All of the above caused a significant number of fans to tuned out on both series early. Thing is, both series improve much more later into their runs. I think both eventually elevate themselves and meet the standards of core fans.

For me, DS9 takes off shortly before its fourth season with the episode The Die Is Cast. The series truly becomes 'great' with its firm beginning of the Dominion storyline in the fourth season. The idea of the Gamma Quadrant's Dominion, Founders, and Jem'Hader had been seeded in various episodes prior to DS9's fourth season.

Voyager had a much more abrupt departure from what it used to be and what it became. Scorpion Part 1 was Voyager's season three ending cliffhanger, with the crew's first confrontation with the Delta Quandrant's Borg race and the introduction of Seven of Nine. It may not be fair to Jennifer Linn but Jeri Ryan shined as the series' new centerpiece and practically made Linn's previous Kes contribution instantly obsolete.

I have said it many times before and will continue saying the same thing. The fourth through seventh seasons of DS9 and Voyager are some of the best episodes in Trek history, even now. I also consider DS9's latter half as some of the best dramatic episodic television regardless of genre or era. That said, I still give the nod to Voyager for best series finale, Endgame, of the two.

/rant

 

[Runwildboys]

Star Trek nerd opinion rant time

Both Deep Space Nine and Voyager suffered from a singular problem entertaining core Star Trek fans. Both series were formatted to emulate The Next Generation. TNG had well-written philosophical episodes from the start. Early on, DS9 and Voyager episodes tried excessively hard to distance themselves from TNG's concept.

The hardline approach lead to some weaker initial storyline narratives. I think DS9 focused way too much on the Ferengi at times and not enough on the Bajorian/Cardassian historical conflict. Also, I believe they did not develop Sisko's emissary role as much as it could have been.

Similarly, Voyager was saddled with the crude Kazon empire as primary antagonists at series' start. Plus, Kes and Neelix were not extremely strong supporting characters.

All of the above caused a significant number of fans to tuned out on both series early. Thing is, both series improve much more later into their runs. I think both eventually elevate themselves and meet the standards of core fans.

For me, DS9 takes off shortly before its fourth season with the episode The Die Is Cast. The series truly becomes 'great' with its firm beginning of the Dominion storyline in the fourth season. The idea of the Gamma Quadrant's Dominion, Founders, and Jem'Hader had been seeded in various episodes prior to DS9's fourth season.

Voyager had a much more abrupt departure from what it used to be and what it became. Scorpion Part 1 was Voyager's season three ending cliffhanger, with the crew's first confrontation with the Delta Quandrant's Borg race and the introduction of Seven of Nine. It may not be fair to Jennifer Linn but Jeri Ryan shined as the series' new centerpiece and practically made Linn's previous Kes contribution instantly obsolete.

I have said it many times before and will continue saying the same thing. The fourth through seventh seasons of DS9 and Voyager are some of the best episodes in Trek history, even now. I also consider DS9's latter half as some of the best dramatic episodic television regardless of genre or era. That said, I still give the nod to Voyager for best series finale, Endgame, of the two.

/rant

I'll only disagree with you in the DS9 part. I thought the show had so many places to go, with the wormhole right there, but I lost interest when the shapes became the main storyline. I never really cared for the security chief being a shape shifters, and to add a whole war with them was too much. I stopped watching shortly after it became clear they were there to stay.

 

[DallasEast]

I'll only disagree with you in the DS9 part. I thought the show had so many places to go, with the wormhole right there, but I lost interest when the shapes became the main storyline. I never really cared for the security chief being a shape shifters, and to add a whole war with them was too much. I stopped watching shortly after it became clear they were there to stay.

The wormhole led only to the Gamma Quadrant. The series had episodes that dealt with exploration of the Gamma Quadrant in its first three seasons.

Just as The Borg controlled the majority of the Delta Quadrant, so too did the Dominion over the Gamma Quadrant. As the series revealed, The Dominion was created long ago by a persecuted race, driven nearly to extinction, who eventually used their changeling abilities as an advantage to control everyone in their sector of the Milky Way.

Odo was a member of that race of innocent victims turned oppressive conquerors. In the exact mold of Spock and Worf before him, Odo's character emphasized how a culture different from humanity and humanity itself could be merged into one.

The Federation/Dominion war was glorious in my opinion. From the macro aspect, it melded the different perspectives of various species into one. Jem'Hadar. Vorta, Changlings (although we only saw a handful ). Klingon. Romulan. Breen. Cardassian. Bajorian. Ferengi. Human. The list goes on and on. From the micro aspect, the audience sees how all those members of all those diverse races deal with duty, love, hate, joy, sadness, etc., on an everyday basis.

I understand why it does not appeal to everyone. For me, I am tempted to label the melodrama of the latter seasons as epic. Rick Berman and Michael Piller did a fantastic job in my book once they stopped thinking exactly how Gene Roddenberry would have done it and focused on their own imaginations instead. But again, that's just me.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Star Trek nerd opinion rant time

Both Deep Space Nine and Voyager suffered from a singular problem entertaining core Star Trek fans. Both series were formatted to emulate The Next Generation. TNG had well-written philosophical episodes from the start. Early on, DS9 and Voyager episodes tried excessively hard to distance themselves from TNG's concept.

The hardline approach lead to some weaker initial storyline narratives. I think DS9 focused way too much on the Ferengi at times and not enough on the Bajorian/Cardassian historical conflict. Also, I believe they did not develop Sisko's emissary role as much as it could have been.

The Dominion War was BOSS.

Similarly, Voyager was saddled with the crude Kazon empire as primary antagonists at series' start. Plus, Kes and Neelix were not extremely strong supporting characters.

All of the above caused a significant number of fans to tuned out on both series early. Thing is, both series improve much more later into their runs. I think both eventually elevate themselves and meet the standards of core fans.

For me, DS9 takes off shortly before its fourth season with the episode The Die Is Cast. The series truly becomes 'great' with its firm beginning of the Dominion storyline in the fourth season. The idea of the Gamma Quadrant's Dominion, Founders, and Jem'Hader had been seeded in various episodes prior to DS9's fourth season.

Voyager had a much more abrupt departure from what it used to be and what it became. Scorpion Part 1 was Voyager's season three ending cliffhanger, with the crew's first confrontation with the Delta Quandrant's Borg race and the introduction of Seven of Nine. It may not be fair to Jennifer Linn but Jeri Ryan shined as the series' new centerpiece and practically made Linn's previous Kes contribution instantly obsolete.

I have said it many times before and will continue saying the same thing. The fourth through seventh seasons of DS9 and Voyager are some of the best episodes in Trek history, even now. I also consider DS9's latter half as some of the best dramatic episodic television regardless of genre or era. That said, I still give the nod to Voyager for best series finale, Endgame, of the two.

/rant

I agree and disagree with some parts of this.

First, I am extremely thankful DS9 did not focus more on the Bajorians. While the Bajorian / Cadassian conflict a very good part of the show. (with one MASSIVE exception which I will get to later) The Bajorian's religious episodes were some of the worst in all of Star Trek history. Kai Winn was PAINFUL to watch any time she was on the show. (the character, not the person) Just an awful character and awful story-lines. That character was literally like when your child brings that one extremely annoying kid to the house. You don't want to even let them in, but he/she is an innocent child and you know you just need to beat the crap out of their parents for allowing the kid to develop like that lol!

Couldn't stand the "Emissary" story-line either. It was just poorly constructed and uninteresting. It almost always ended up with Kai Winn in the episode too so, I double down on hating the Emissary story-line even more.

Now back to the Bajorian / Cardassian part that I hated and that was the end where you blended the Cardassian's into the Bajorian religious story-line with Gul Dukat becoming basically the Pah Wraith Emissary. A utterly abhor that story-line and always skip over it when watching DS9. Guess what! That story-line included ENORMOUS amounts if Kai Winn! UGH!

For Voyager. At one point it was my absolute favorite Star Trek show. There are things I didn't like about it. I didn't hate Kess or Neelix, but some of the stories that focused on them where not good and I will occasionally skip those too. That said, they did at times play some good parts in the shows. There were many shows where Neelix played a very good part in the show. Of course there were many where it wasn't good. When he was jealous of Tom Paris was a pretty good instance of where he sucked.

I agree that Voyager got a lot better when Seven of Nine joined the cast. Not just because she is an attractive woman either. She played a very good role, but it was also tied Voyager into the Borg conflict and the Borg is one of the most popular villains in all of Star Trek. The Kazon were not a very good villain. What makes a good villian is they need a trait that makes them a very big risk to the crew. Either they must be very smart and clever, or have some way that the Voyager crew can't just stand up and fight them toe to toe (like the Borg) The Kazon were stupid, had lessor technology, and even though they had many more ships. Those ships (the different sects) were divided up fighting among themselves. They were never a real threat and the only thing that got them even remotely close to being a real threat was when Seska joined them.

Yeah, I agree. The Kazon suck something fierce.

Lets talk about Star Trek: Enterprise.

I love this show also, but it too started out extremely slow. That said, I really do love the show, but if you notice. The show got so much better when they entered the Delphic Expanse and the Xindi War started. The Xindi where a *real* threat. They had the ability to destroy the Enterprise and the entire Earth for that matter. (Kazon had none of that!) That lead to some great stories.

Things I disliked:

• T'Pol in the first season. She was awful with zero personality of any type. She is a Vulcan you say, of course. At least Spock has something endearing about him even in the first season. T'Pol, not so much. I mean I get she had to start that way because she was new (didn't know anyone on the ship) and she was a Vulcan (all logic not much else) She still needed something (besides being very attractive) to give her more life than an object sitting on the floor. The good side, is she did end up developing a personality, but it took 2+ season before it really started to come out.
• Captain Archer occasionally would act like a *****. Doing or saying stupid things. Actually Captain Janeway would too from time to time, but Captain Archer was soooo much more likely to do that. (the episode where he was saving the Xindi off-spring was a AWFUL episode. Hate that one)
• I find a lot of people hate the ending too with Xenophobic and the Mars colonies trying to use the verteron array to destroy Star Fleet Headquarters. Personally, I liked that story-line. As for what I hate about Enterprise. The fact that it ended after only four seasons. I wish it had seven seasons too just like the other 80s/90s Star Trek seasons.

 

[DallasEast]

Hopefully everyone will indulge this Star Trek nerd one additional comment of a side conversation that has driven the thread off-track.

Avery Brooks delivered a steady, masterful job playing Captain Benjamin Sisko throughout DS9's run. If there was one single episode I would recommend to anyone that illustrated both the best qualities of the latter seasons and Brooks' acting skill, it would be In The Pale Moonlight.

Forget about watching 176 episodes for a second and give that one episode a try. If that one episode does not make you like DS9, don't watch the series. Nothing will sell the series if Brooks' narration throughout the entire episode--ESPECIALLY his one-on-one conversation with the audience during the final minutes of the episode--cannot.

Enough of Star Trek geekdom. Time for some one-on-one Star Wars Battlefront 2 play time.

 

[DallasEast]

I agree and disagree with some parts of this.

First, I am extremely thankful DS9 did not focus more on the Bajorians. While the Bajorian / Cadassian conflict a very good part of the show. (with one MASSIVE exception which I will get to later) The Bajorian's religious episodes were some of the worst in all of Star Trek history. Kai Winn was PAINFUL to watch any time she was on the show. (the character, not the person) Just an awful character and awful story-lines. That character was literally like when your child brings that one extremely annoying kid to the house. You don't want to even let them in, but he/she is an innocent child and you know you just need to beat the crap out of their parents for allowing the kid to develop like that lol!

Couldn't stand the "Emissary" story-line either. It was just poorly constructed and uninteresting. It almost always ended up with Kai Winn in the episode too so, I double down on hating the Emissary story-line even more.

Now back to the Bajorian / Cardassian part that I hated and that was the end where you blended the Cardassian's into the Bajorian religious story-line with Gul Dukat becoming basically the Pah Wraith Emissary. A utterly abhor that story-line and always skip over it when watching DS9. Guess what! That story-line included ENORMOUS amounts if Kai Winn! UGH!

For Voyager. At one point it was my absolute favorite Star Trek show. There are things I didn't like about it. I didn't hate Kess or Neelix, but some of the stories that focused on them where not good and I will occasionally skip those too. That said, they did at times play some good parts in the shows. There were many shows where Neelix played a very good part in the show. Of course there were many where it wasn't good. When he was jealous of Tom Paris was a pretty good instance of where he sucked.

I agree that Voyager got a lot better when Seven of Nine joined the cast. Not just because she is an attractive woman either. She played a very good role, but it was also tied Voyager into the Borg conflict and the Borg is one of the most popular villains in all of Star Trek. The Kazon were not a very good villain. What makes a good villian is they need a trait that makes them a very big risk to the crew. Either they must be very smart and clever, or have some way that the Voyager crew can't just stand up and fight them toe to toe (like the Borg) The Kazon were stupid, had lessor technology, and even though they had many more ships. Those ships (the different sects) were divided up fighting among themselves. They were never a real threat and the only thing that got them even remotely close to being a real threat was when Seska joined them.

Yeah, I agree. The Kazon suck something fierce.

Lets talk about Star Trek: Enterprise.

I love this show also, but it too started out extremely slow. That said, I really do love the show, but if you notice. The show got so much better when they entered the Delphic Expanse and the Xindi War started. The Xindi where a *real* threat. They had the ability to destroy the Enterprise and the entire Earth for that matter. (Kazon had none of that!) That lead to some great stories.

Things I disliked:

• T'Pol in the first season. She was awful with zero personality of any type. She is a Vulcan you say, of course. At least Spock has something endearing about him even in the first season. T'Pol, not so much. I mean I get she had to start that way because she was new (didn't know anyone on the ship) and she was a Vulcan (all logic not much else) She still needed something (besides being very attractive) to give her more life than an object sitting on the floor. The good side, is she did end up developing a personality, but it took 2+ season before it really started to come out.
• Captain Archer occasionally would act like a *****. Doing or saying stupid things. Actually Captain Janeway would too from time to time, but Captain Archer was soooo much more likely to do that. (the episode where he was saving the Xindi off-spring was a AWFUL episode. Hate that one)
• I find a lot of people hate the ending too with Xenophobic and the Mars colonies trying to use the verteron array to destroy Star Fleet Headquarters. Personally, I liked that story-line. As for what I hate about Enterprise. The fact that it ended after only four seasons. I wish it had seven seasons too just like the other 80s/90s Star Trek seasons.

Good stuff that when I skim through. I will read the entire thing later and re-don my Star Trek nerd cap.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Hopefully everyone will indulge this Star Trek nerd one additional comment of a side conversation that has driven the thread off-track.

Avery Brooks delivered a steady, masterful job playing Captain Benjamin Sisko throughout DS9's run. If there was one single episode I would recommend to anyone that illustrated both the best qualities of the latter seasons and Brooks' acting skill, it would be In The Pale Moonlight.

Forget about watching 176 episodes for a second and give that one episode a try. If that one episode does not make you like DS9, don't watch the series. Nothing will sell the series if Brooks' narration throughout the entire episode--ESPECIALLY his one-on-one conversation with the audience during the final minutes of the episode--cannot.

Enough of Star Trek geekdom. Time for some one-on-one Star Wars Battlefront 2 play time.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Oh yeah, Garak was my favorite character on DS9. He too was BOSS!

 

[Cover 2]

This is good news. Some Trek fans like to bash Voyager, but I think it was good. It just took some time to get its legs.

Yeah, I couldn't stand Janeway the first half of season 1. Her character becomes less annoying later on, and I even grew to like her.

 

[Oz-of-Cowboy-Country]

I'd take StarGate and StarGate Atlantis over any of the StarTrek series. Even though, they are two of my all time favorite scifi shows. JMO.

 

[Runwildboys]

I'd take StarGate and StarGate Atlantis over any of the StarTrek series. Even though, they are two of my all time favorite scifi shows. JMO.

Well, that's an original take!

 

[Cover 2]

Hopefully everyone will indulge this Star Trek nerd one additional comment of a side conversation that has driven the thread off-track.

Avery Brooks delivered a steady, masterful job playing Captain Benjamin Sisko throughout DS9's run. If there was one single episode I would recommend to anyone that illustrated both the best qualities of the latter seasons and Brooks' acting skill, it would be In The Pale Moonlight.

Forget about watching 176 episodes for a second and give that one episode a try. If that one episode does not make you like DS9, don't watch the series. Nothing will sell the series if Brooks' narration throughout the entire episode--ESPECIALLY his one-on-one conversation with the audience during the final minutes of the episode--cannot.

Enough of Star Trek geekdom. Time for some one-on-one Star Wars Battlefront 2 play time.

The Pale Moonlight was one of my favorite overall episodes. The one where Sisko dematerializes and Jake spends his life trying to bring him back is my favorite DS9 episode though.

 

[DallasEast]

I agree and disagree with some parts of this.

First, I am extremely thankful DS9 did not focus more on the Bajorians. While the Bajorian / Cadassian conflict a very good part of the show. (with one MASSIVE exception which I will get to later) The Bajorian's religious episodes were some of the worst in all of Star Trek history. Kai Winn was PAINFUL to watch any time she was on the show. (the character, not the person) Just an awful character and awful story-lines. That character was literally like when your child brings that one extremely annoying kid to the house. You don't want to even let them in, but he/she is an innocent child and you know you just need to beat the crap out of their parents for allowing the kid to develop like that lol!

Couldn't stand the "Emissary" story-line either. It was just poorly constructed and uninteresting. It almost always ended up with Kai Winn in the episode too so, I double down on hating the Emissary story-line even more.

Now back to the Bajorian / Cardassian part that I hated and that was the end where you blended the Cardassian's into the Bajorian religious story-line with Gul Dukat becoming basically the Pah Wraith Emissary. A utterly abhor that story-line and always skip over it when watching DS9. Guess what! That story-line included ENORMOUS amounts if Kai Winn! UGH!

For Voyager. At one point it was my absolute favorite Star Trek show. There are things I didn't like about it. I didn't hate Kess or Neelix, but some of the stories that focused on them where not good and I will occasionally skip those too. That said, they did at times play some good parts in the shows. There were many shows where Neelix played a very good part in the show. Of course there were many where it wasn't good. When he was jealous of Tom Paris was a pretty good instance of where he sucked.

I agree that Voyager got a lot better when Seven of Nine joined the cast. Not just because she is an attractive woman either. She played a very good role, but it was also tied Voyager into the Borg conflict and the Borg is one of the most popular villains in all of Star Trek. The Kazon were not a very good villain. What makes a good villian is they need a trait that makes them a very big risk to the crew. Either they must be very smart and clever, or have some way that the Voyager crew can't just stand up and fight them toe to toe (like the Borg) The Kazon were stupid, had lessor technology, and even though they had many more ships. Those ships (the different sects) were divided up fighting among themselves. They were never a real threat and the only thing that got them even remotely close to being a real threat was when Seska joined them.

Yeah, I agree. The Kazon suck something fierce.

Lets talk about Star Trek: Enterprise.

I love this show also, but it too started out extremely slow. That said, I really do love the show, but if you notice. The show got so much better when they entered the Delphic Expanse and the Xindi War started. The Xindi where a *real* threat. They had the ability to destroy the Enterprise and the entire Earth for that matter. (Kazon had none of that!) That lead to some great stories.

Things I disliked:

• T'Pol in the first season. She was awful with zero personality of any type. She is a Vulcan you say, of course. At least Spock has something endearing about him even in the first season. T'Pol, not so much. I mean I get she had to start that way because she was new (didn't know anyone on the ship) and she was a Vulcan (all logic not much else) She still needed something (besides being very attractive) to give her more life than an object sitting on the floor. The good side, is she did end up developing a personality, but it took 2+ season before it really started to come out.
• Captain Archer occasionally would act like a *****. Doing or saying stupid things. Actually Captain Janeway would too from time to time, but Captain Archer was soooo much more likely to do that. (the episode where he was saving the Xindi off-spring was a AWFUL episode. Hate that one)
• I find a lot of people hate the ending too with Xenophobic and the Mars colonies trying to use the verteron array to destroy Star Fleet Headquarters. Personally, I liked that story-line. As for what I hate about Enterprise. The fact that it ended after only four seasons. I wish it had seven seasons too just like the other 80s/90s Star Trek seasons.

My view of Voyager is pretty much the exact opposite except for Kes, Neelix and the Kazon. I can say the same for DS9 and would like getting into what I really enjoyed about Kai Winn, The Emissary, etc., but feel it would be an automatic rule #6 violation on my part.

I agree Enterprise began slow but felt it was really necessary. To me, it seemed the right thing to do towards offering establishing a foundation explaining history that happened before The Original Series. I agree with everything else but not too strongly about the character T'Pol. She was full Vulcan suffering from degenerative mental illness. Her mental control was exceptional but forced. I thought her inner fight fighting her emotional control was a strong addition to the storyline.

The series really rounded well going into the Xindi storyline. The time paradoxes were well-thought out. I loved it.

 

[DallasEast]

I'd take StarGate and StarGate Atlantis over any of the StarTrek series. Even though, they are two of my all time favorite scifi shows. JMO.

Stargate SG-1 is a personal favorite of mine. Same goes for my wife but she has this thing for Jack O'Neil mostly.

I have a ton of respect for SG-1 so I would not argue it maybe being placed above Star Trek. Stargate Atlantis was good but I would argue it being better than any of the Trek series.

 

[DallasEast]

The Pale Moonlight was one of my favorite overall episodes. The one where Sisko dematerializes and Jake spends his life trying to bring him back is my favorite DS9 episode though.

I remembered the episode but had to google its title. The Visitor was definitely a top-tier episode of the fourth through seventh seasons. It was a good indication of the path the series was headed. Excellent storytelling.