Season 6 has several ongoing storylines that leave its characters a little less frozen in amber than in Season 5. While only one actually works, Season 6 ranks just a bit higher than Season 5 for at least trying to be more ambitious.
Voyager regains contact with the Alpha Quadrant — the season’s best storyline — in “Pathfinder” and “Life Line.” There’s no reset button at the end of either; after “Pathfinder,” the Voyager is in regular contact with the Alpha Quadrant for the remainder of the series. A second storyline involves a group of Borg children who are discovered in “Collective,” then recur in three other episodes. That all adds up to a season low point, as they further the show’s defanging of the Borg as a meaningful adversary. Even more unfortunate is an Irish village on the holodeck. It was abandoned after only two episodes, “Fair Haven” and “Spirit Folk,” but not before subjecting audiences to more grating stereotypes than even “The Next Generation” stinker “Up The Long Ladder.”
Beyond these three storylines, this is a season once again driven by episodic fare, and although there are some worthwhile installments (including “Survival Instinct” and “Barge of the Dead,” both written by Ronald D. Moore), there are quite a few clunkers. Those clunkers, including “Alice,” “Virtuoso,” “Tsunkatse” (aka “The One with The Rock”), “Ashes to Ashes,” and “Live Fast And Prosper,” have nothing on “Fury,” a series nadir. Marking the return of Kes (Jennifer Lien), it is a total misuse of the character, whose motivations are paper-thin and inconsistent with previous characterization.