The fourth season of Star Trek: Voyager on DVD contains some of Voyager's best and most thought-provoking episodes, and featured some great guest-stars. Kicking off the box set is "Scorpion, Part II," which introduced Seven of Nine to the Star Trek audience, forever changing how we look at the Borg. Other greats in the season include "Concerning Flight," which introduced John Rhys-Davies as the holographic Leonardo Da Vinci, "Message in a Bottle," which featured The Doctor and the EMH-2 (Andy Dick) pitted against Romulans (and also introduced a chilling new threat to Voyager's crew in the guise of the Hirogen) and the terrific two-parters "Year of Hell" and "The Killing Game." One of my favorites from the fourth season is "The Omega Directive," which demonstrated that despite the crew's overarching mission to return home, there are things in the universe even bigger than one ship's return home, as Janeway must take all steps necessary to intercede before a potential weapon of galactic destruction can be realized.

Extra features on the Voyager Season Four DVD set include interviews with Brannon Braga, Jeri Taylor and cast members (including a new, exclusive interview with Garret Wang, discussing his character Harry Kim), an in-depth look at Seven of Nine and Jeri Ryan, and some fascinating behind-the-scenes look at "The Birth of Species 8472" and "The Art of Alien Worlds." There are also some fun Easter Eggs, inlcuding a piece where Tim Russ ("Tuvok") details his first directing experience, helming the episode "Living Witness." This is another episode I enjoy a lot, as a skewed rewritten-history version of the Voyager crew allowed the cast to play their roles as if they were evil, resulting in some very funny moments while exploring the theme of the subjective nature of history remembered from only one perspective.

With all 26 episodes of the season plus the extra features, this box set brings some of Voyager's most creative and enjoyable episodes to DVD for the first time, and is a must for all fans of the show, Star Trek and science fiction in general. Too bad for me the review copy has to stay in the office, there's room on my shelf at home!

[Paul]