I mean, geez. I’ve yet to hear anyone say anything good about it, in this forum or anywhere else. It wasn’t THAT bad. In fact, I never missed it. It was quite well-written and acted, compared to 99% of the rest of what was on. No, it wasn’t “The Next Generation,” but then, you can’t just re-make a series. “Voyager” was an attempt to do something new and different, without completely rehashing something already done.
Besides, people who are paying attention will note that the newest “Star Trek” show has more in common with “Voyager” than any other program from the continuum, to whit:
Both series have a female alien who, for no apparent reason, walks around in skin-tight bodysuits that emphasize her larger-than-average breasts; T’Pau in Enterprise, Seven of Nine in Voyager.
Both are about the crews of small ships alone and on their own, physically, psychologically, or both.
The actual make-up of the crews. Both ships have captains who are (relatively) young and have never done any deep-space exploration. Both have a young Asian person and a Vulcan serving on the bridge, although the genders are reversed.
The Federation and Starfleet are non-entities in both shows. They either have yet to be created or are a lifetime of travel away.
All of the above are the exact opposite of the state of things for ST:TNG. So that begs the question: If Voyager was so bad, why are Star Trek’s creators emulating IT, and not the other Star Trek programs for their new series?
Hey liz, I’m with you. I liked the show. And seven, cat suit or no, was key to the show hitting its stride. What I didn’t like was its lack of internal consistency … a flaw of Enterprise as well … must be generational for the writers.
I didn’t see any major problems with internal consistency in either Voyager or Enterprise. The biggest complaints regarding Voyager that I’ve read apply to the time travel episodes. These tended to result in some disaster that occurred at the beginning of an episode being avoided by the destruction of something related to the time travel near the end. Certain hard core Trek fans refer to this derisively as Janeway’s reset button. I personally liked both of the “Year of Hell” episodes quite a bit.
Could you elaborate here? All of the continuity complaints I’ve heard about Enterprise and Voyager have to do with external continuity-- that certain aspects don’t seem to match up with ST and ST:TNG–but the internal continuity–how episodes relate to other episodes of the same series–doesn’t seem to me to be problematic.
I tend to fall into the “Voyager mostly stunk with a few good episodes” crowd, but then, I didn’t care much for ST-TNG either, nor Enterprise (although Enterprise is showing a bit of promise). I think my objections were:
a) In general, weak scripts. To be fair, the writers had a miserable job. Voyager was essentially "Lost in Space" which means that the crew doesn't really have any mission except to get home. And you know that they aren't going to get home until the series closes. And you know that they aren't going to get all blowed up. So it's just "alien encounter" of the week. And the first two Star Treks pretty much had exhausted this vein.
This is coupled with the same problem that ST-TNG had -- character-oriented scripts. If you look at the original Star Trek series, the scripts were essentially plot-based. The plots may have been goofy (parallel worlds anyone?) but they were crisp, full of action, drama, and often humor. Character development happened was secondary and often serendipitous. In Voyager, the characters talked too damn much. Humor, when it came, often seemed forced. You could almost feel the committee writing the scripts.
b) Casting/chemistry. This is obviously a matter of taste, but Janeway was pretty irritating as Captain, especially because she had to play by the sanctimonious Star Fleet/Federation rules. Neelix was, let’s face it, a Jar-Jar Binks. Then you had a bunch of token but essentially personality free crew members (Ensign Kim, Commander Chicote(sp?), and the Klingon woman). You really got the feeling that they cast the show like they were casting a Benetton commercial. Really, the doctor was the only standout cast member until 7 of 9 showed up.
c) Escalating techno-babble. Far too many resolutions based on reversing the polarity of the deflector dish, yada, yada, yada. Holodeck episodes. Time travel episodes (let's make it didn't happen).
d) The freaking Prime Directive and the fact that the Federation is just the cutest cuddliest most PC organization ever to send phaser-equipped spacecraft into space. Yes, it's very laudable to resolve your conflicts over a cup of herbal tea, but it makes for some very boring episodes.
e. The Voyager looked pretty damned good for a ship that got the crap kicked out of it pretty much every other episode (by not cute, non-cuddly space travelling races).
There really isn’t much to say about Voyager that is good. There were very few decent episodes, there were far to many episodes that relied on lame technological plot devices, and after 7 years I really didn’t like or care about any of the characters.
**
Nobody expected them to remake TNG. When Voyager was first announced I thought the concept was a pretty good idea. I don’t think they did a very good job executing it. There were just to many bad episodes for me to consider Voyager to be well written. I can only imagine the meethings they had.
“Neelix dies, let’s just use 7 of 9’s nano technology to bring him back.”
“Hey, let’s have an episode with animal spirit guides!”
“Neelix, you’re not really mad at those people who destroyed your home planet and killed your family. You’re mad at yourself for not being there.”
“We need some way to fix this alien murderer’s neural pathways. I know, let’s use 7 of 9’s nano technology, nobody will see that coming.”
“Let’s ruin the Borg!”
“You know what this show really needs? A nice piece of ass in a skin tight suit, let’s hire this Jeri Ryan woman.”
“You know what this show really needs? A nice piece of ass in skin tight shorts, let’s hire that Rock guy.”
“Let’s ruin Q!”
“Why not have them meet Amelia Earhart?”
**
New is good, they just should have made it something worth watching.
**
TOS had women running around in short skirts that practically allowed their asses to hang out.
**
In TOS they made a big deal out of the crew having to be physically and mentally in shape to be pepared for the difficulties of exploration.
**
TOS had what was the youngest captain in Star Fleet history (until TNG), they had an asian at the helm, and a vulcan as a first officer.
**
The Feds certainly weren’t a non-entity in Voyager. Despite being so far away they pretty much kept to Starfleet rules and regulations. In later seasons they were no longer isolated and could speak with SF and receive letters from home.
Superficial similiarities does not make one show good or one show bad.
TNG had their resident babe Troi, DS9 didn’t have a main character that ran around in a cat suit, but made up for it with Dabo Girls.
The Enterprise from TOS was usually the only ship near where they were out alone.
Well, Janeway had done some deep space exploration. And Harry Kim was one of the lamest characters ever, while i have an odd attachment to Hoshi. TOS had a vulcan as well, and Dax was the DS9 vulcan, while Data subsituted for TNG
That got ruined when they started chatting with Reg every other week. (not that i’m complaining about Murdock, i mean Reg. I just ignore that Ferengi episode)
I hope me and the others have suffeciently pointed out TNG and DS9 are less different then you think.
Good Voyager Episodes:
1–That one with the Holodeck program that was a Maquis takeover
2-- Year of Hell Part 1 and 2
3–Scorpion part 1
4–The one where the Doctor is in a museum 500 years from now, with the hologram Voyager where everyone is evil. (and the doctor was an android)
5–Any episode where Harry is shot/hit/smacked/made fun of.
6–Equinox part 1
The problem with Voyager was that it was too PC, too nicey-nice and feel-good. Look at the whole reason why Voyager got stranded in the Delta Quadrant… Janeway, instead of using the Caretaker’s array to get back to the Alpha Quadrant (which should have been her first priority), blew it up to prevent the Kazon from using its technology.
Sounds nice, right?
The problem is that in doing so, Janeway violated the Prime Directive. The death of the Caretaker and the Array’s takeover by the Kazon would have been the natural course of events for that area of space… by destroying the Array, Janeway intruded on that course of events.
A nitpick? Perhaps. But when the show is throwing its own rules out the window right from the start, it says something.
The third (I believe it was the third) episode was just as bad… it revolved around Voyager yutzing around a black hole. They ultimately escape by finding a crack in the black hole’s event horizon. Now, call me crazy, but I find it unlikely that an event horizon will have a crack in it in the first place.
And Voyager just kept going downhill. Sure, there were some gems… any episode that heavily featured the Doctor, for instance. But a lot of times, there was stupid conflict for stupid reasons, crew members - or the captain herself - doing stupid things for stupid reasons, constant violations of the Prime Directive, constant reliance upon transporter incidents (Tuvix, anyone?) or holodeck malfunctions for plot devices, or the cop-out of “It never really happened/Nothing happens in the end” (like the episode where some spatial anomaly starts altering the internal characteristics of the ship), or your standard deus ex machina. Then there was the terrible misused technobabble jargon, like their tendency to refer to anything and everything as a “singularity”.
Voyager could have been a wonderful, wonderful idea. But it butchered Star Trek. The Borg… what was once an intelligent, elegant, and aloof species that only wanted technology was transformed into a sort of mindless race of technology vampire zombies. Time Travel… torn to shreds (29th Century Federation? Gag!). The Q? Went from arbiters and overseers of the galaxy to cosmic jesters.
Then there was the constant use of “betrayal”. EVERY SINGLE TIME they met a new alien that seemed nice and good at the beginning of the episode, they ALWAYS wound up fighting them at the end. It got stale really quick.
You want to know why Voyager was so bad? You really want to know? Well, as long as Spoofe’s asleep and I can get first crack at it…
(on preview…DAMN YOU SPOOFE, you will rue the day!)
Let’s start with Berman and Braga. Berman was second in charge behind Roddenberry and when Gene died, Berman pretty much took charge of the show. Braga started off as a writer, moved up to head writer and eventually hit Co-producer status. These two held hands and danced upon the grave of Star Trek’s creator by destroying his universe piece by piece.
Now, you may say you never liked Gene’s original concept. That’s fine. But it was HIS concept and if you want your own philosophy implemented you create your own universe. Berman and Braga didn’t and they showed just how little they cared for his vision with their first solely independent series: Voyager.
They all but ignore the Federation except when it suits them. They care nothing for continuity and will often times flaunt it in the face of trekkers that they truly do not concern themselves with getting details correct. If you’re so much of a nerd you’d care about pesky details, that’s your problem. But universe creation is about the details. The cardinal rule of writing SF is “write whatever you want and we’ll follow you there, but once you lay the laws down you’d damn well better stick to them or we will abandon you.” They didn’t so we did.
Second, let’s face it: the main characters could have been better. 7 of 9 at least had some ahem development in her character. Yes, we loved her for the eye candy, but people also cared about her struggle to come back to humanity. The doctor’s constant battles for basic human rights hit home with many viewers.
But what about Chakotay? What do we know about him? He’s Indian. Great. When does that play into the plot? Maybe once a season when it’s needed and the rest of the time completely ignored.
Harry Kim? He’s a weenie. Why do we like him? Why the hell is an ensign constantly going to command officer meetings? And he’s still an ensign after 7 years? Which brings us to…
Conflict. This series had so much potential. SO MUCH FREAKING POTENTIAL I MUST USE CAPS TO EXPRESS IT. There should have been constant struggle between the Maqui and Starfleet. . There should have been resentment. Can you imagine knowing that you would be an ensign for the rest of your life because there’s no one to replace you? There’s nowhere for you to be promoted to? Your superior will always be your superior. You can’t quit, can you? Then the ship stops working. Or maybe you want that, don’t you? Maybe mutiny doesn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.
The episodes don’t have to be about aliens of the week or technology gone haywire. Just give us something to care about. Give us characters we can relate to and plots we can watch unfold. That shouldn’t be so difficult, should it? But with Berman and Braga at the helm, a committee of writers underneath, and no one on the cast who truly cares about boldly going where others haven’t gone before, you get Voyager.
Mediocrity at its averagest.
I liked the three preceeding Star Trek series, eevn DS-9, but I’m no where near a Trekie, and I STILL Hated this series. I never really caught an entire episode, but never felt the need to, because they all seemed the same. They entered some sort of rift and it was up to one person to fix the damned thing; the ship’s getting it’s ass kicked by someone, then they just jump back in time and it’s all all right; and worst of all, the Borg end up being a bunch of chumps who apparently CAN’T ASSIMILATE A SINGLE STAR FLEET VESSEL? Um, funny, I kind of recall that one single cube is essentially able to wipe out all of star fleet’s armada (it happened once in the series, and once in First Contact; how this ONE SHIP managed to survive countless interactions with the Borg, I have no idea).
The show just sucked, and there were plenty of episodes that ended with the ship barely being held together by toothpicks and bubble gum, yet the next episode, everything was cool and there wasn’t a single problem.
The show wasn’t supposed to be anything original, from what I remember reading about it when it first came out. It was supposed to be a type of rehash of the original series…the whole concept of exploration and discovery. nfortunately, it just re-created old alien races and did the same old shit, and then butchered everything cool about the old universe. It was crap. How it lasted seven years, I’ll never understand.
It lasted for seven years because a lot of people liked it, including me. I think Janeway is the best of all the Star Trek captains. Seven of Nine was the sexiest of all the Star Trek women. And Tuvok was the best of all the Star Trek Vulcans. The only character I didn’t like was Neelix. I despised the cheesy little elf, but he was worth enduring for the sake of the show.
Didn’t DS9 have the same sort of script problems? DS9 was rubbish at first, barring episode one then the writers created the dominion cardassian problem for the basis of an extremely well written series.
The Voyager series I think was in the same trouble as DS9, but the writers this time couldn’t think of an original plot to fit with the series.
Well here’s a start:
*War war and more war
*political warfare
*Ideological warfare
*Awoken enemies
*Power struggles
*Resistance factions
*Terroist organisations
*More corrupt federation officials
*Disaterous wars conflicts
*Collapsing empires
What would of been good would have been returning to the Alpha quadrant and seeing that the Klingons were a collapsing empire, the Romulans rise to great power status and the federation occuping and redeveloping cardassia along democratic lines to oppose the Romulans increasing hostility.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Lizard *
**I mean, geez. I’ve yet to hear anyone say anything good about it, in this forum or anywhere else. It wasn’t THAT bad. In fact, I never missed it. It was quite well-written and acted, compared to 99% of the rest of what was on. No, it wasn’t “The Next Generation,” but then, you can’t just re-make a series. “Voyager” was an attempt to do something new and different, without completely rehashing something already done.
[QUOTE]
For me it was Janeways voice - turned me off from day 1 - its like walking on broken glass
Also too many of the plots were rehashed from TOS or TNG - and they were too contrived - the series didn’t take off well the way TNG and DS9 did
But also it was too preachy and sanctimonious, despite the fact that they broke the rules themselves. For me Pocahontus is to Disney as Voyager is to Star Trek.
Here’s another one.
Straw is to camel’s back as Tuvix resolution is to my watching that show. Too sitcomy. As if they felt that most people were going to watch the episodes out of order so at the end of each was a return to normal. Like the one with Janeway’s alien baby. groan
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Osiris *
**Ooh yeah. That got me too.
But also it was too preachy and sanctimonious, despite the fact that they broke the rules themselves. For me Pocahontus is to Disney as Voyager is to Star Trek.
Here’s another one.
Straw is to camel’s back as Tuvix resolution is to my watching that show. Too sitcomy. As if they felt that most people were going to watch the episodes out of order so at the end of each was a return to normal.
[QUOTE]
DS9 held my attention BECAUSE it was a continuing story and you had to find out what happened next - even if it got a bit silly sometimes. TNG were mostly stand-alone episodes but I REALLY liked the crew and the way they interacted
Voyager, in comparison, seemed so wooden - I sometimes thought they were reading their lines off cue cards - could the ACTORS not show enough enthusiasm in the series to LEARN their lines???
Star trek only had three plot:
Captain Kirk falls in love and the transporter bean didn’t work.
Dr. Mccoy falls in love and the transporter beam didn’t work.
and Spock falls in love and the transporter beam didn’t work.
I would never trust any thing that worked less then I do.
My problems with Voyager:
1: Too touchy-feely - why did Paris have to turn all gooey-sweet?? I liked him as a convict!
2: Janeway hurts my ears. And she gestures funny. It’s distracting to watch someone who doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hands.
3: Voyager seemed absolutely dead set on focusing on characters, which would be fine, except that I didn’t LIKE any of the characters, with the exception of the doctor.
I watched “Voyager” sporadically in the first season and dropped it after that. So could someone explain why they couldn’t just get Q to zap them back home? He’s good at that kind of stuff, after all.
I’m not a Trekkie, although I have been watching the show since 1966. When I read about a new series, Voyager, the premise sounded intriguing – put a Star Fleet ship clear across the galaxy, far away from the known Star Trek universe. I thought, “Great! They’ll finally have non-humanoid aliens!” Nope; they immediately encounter humanoids with big heads.
I never watched after the pilot episode, but everything I heard about it sounded stupid.
Yea, and he fancied Janeway [why I’ll never know - unless he recognised in her someone potentially MORE annoying than him] - so she would just have to cuddle up to him a bit to get them back home [or would THAT somehow have been twisted to be against the prime directive too]
WHAT A MATCH THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN - Janeway and Q - the 2 most annoying characters in the universe;)
Most of the characters were just so bland. Some of them – like Chakotay and Ensign Kim – were more bland than the others, but with the exception of the Doctor and sometimes Seven of Nine, they were all so incredibly boring. They had no cleverness or spark to their personalities, in contrast to TNG. This is especially evident to me when I compare counterparts. For example, Picard and Janeway, Riker and Chakotay – to me, the TNG character is so much more interesting and likeable than the Voyager character. Even the Doctor, the Voyager character I disliked the least, was much less interesting and fun than Data.
